


Those Lacking Spines Blader Style

by Falco276



Category: Metal Fight Beyblade | Beyblade: Metal Fusion
Genre: Humor, Parody
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 79,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falco276/pseuds/Falco276
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immune to a suspicious parasite by merit of their manly looks, Team Gan Gan Galaxy set out on a journey to save the rest of Bladers from the biggest nightmare of all.... Semes. Can our 4 heroes of MFB bring back the semes to their original blader selves and stop Grand Master Fangirl's plans from creating Fandom Fight Beyblade before it's too late? All MFB fans will go gripping for this humorous parody as they will also discover a list of Seme names and Worlds at the beginning and end of this book. The strength and the courage of the- well, somewhat least mentioned bladers will be needed now, as the quest to save the rest of the bladers from Metal Fight Beyblade begins. PLEASE READ REVIEW! :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seme cast and Descriptions

**Wow, being a fanfic writer is kinda hard whenever it comes too many ideas popping into your mind and YOU JUST CAN'T CONTROL IT! XD**

**But anyway, I was thinking about writing a somewhat re-write of Organization VI's** _**Those Lacking Spines** _ **but! It's going to be turned into the MFB version where all of the bladers (except for Gan Gan Galaxy) are going to be turned into 'Semes' and be affected by the Bayblade parasite (Gutless) as their said leader, The Grand Master Fangirl (THAT'S ME! BWAHAHAHA!) is going to take control over the universe! (BWAHAHAHA again!)**

**Ahem, sorry. But anyway, Orgy. IV gave me the FULL PERMISSION to borrow her story and let me have ownership towards it by extending the summary, and adding a bonus chapter to it. The story line will somewhat be changed but some events or scenes (or semes? LOL.) will be my own.**

**So, the seme names for each blader is based off of the parody names from my MFB parody story:** _**Bayblade! Let it Ship!** _

**The mission is up for Gan Gan Galaxy to travel in the Gummi ship Externalist to every world of Fandom Fight Beyblade and restore every blader's body by capturing the seme's 'You Know' (their heart) into a trusty Tupperware.**

**Now, before I give the Worlds of FFB that each seme is going to be located in, I'm a little busy with a KH fanfic right now. As soon as I finish that, then I'll get onto with this story.**

**Here is the Seme cast and description:**

**Our heroes of FFB: Gingka, Masamune, Tsubasa, Yu, and Madoka.**

**WBBA directors and advisors for the dangerous journey: Ryo Haganei, Hikaru Hasama, Hyoma Harkudo and Kenta Yumiya.**

**Destiny Sanctuary Peak High School Academy Grammar School:**

**Hobio Nike with Store Kappacane (Tobio Oike)-** Janitor for DSPHSAGS, Hobio was the first seme to get into contact with Grandmaster Fangirl before getting the ever helpless Reiji to be turned into a Seme with the ever helpful accompany from Rye Terra. It was then that Gan Gan Galaxy got the two into the Tupperware after Reiji's seme escaped to the DSPHSAGS gym.

**Reggi Wizucha with Pose-ion Sirpant (Reiji)-** Making a fiery appearance in the gym of DSPHSAGS, Reggi turned half of the prom people into vicious Gutless, making Gan Gan Galaxy more difficult to capture him. It was then that all of them were killed and Reggi found no way for them to be turned into a seme, thus getting him captured into the Tupperware.

**Rye Terra Fook A Me! with Thermometer Pieces (Ryutaro)-** Together with Hobio Nike, Rye Terra also tried his best to make his friend convert into a seme, thus before Reggi's escape, the Pieces blader ended up in the Tupperware.

**Big Top:**

**Julia Ronzerk with Grover Percy Jackson-** a virtuoso at violin and the hunger for great taste of music, Julia trains his Percy Jackson to almost an extent of everyday. Finding his teammates a bit strange and useful, the PJ blader always warns that 'they' are arriving and we must present 'them' to the Grandmaster Fangirl or we'll be turned into a desk for good. But none of his teammates seem to listen for they are too busy doing what they usually do.

**Whales with Band Fetus (Wales)-** Whale Trainer for the Big Top Aquarium and botany professor for the Big Top Flower Garden, the Fetus blader always fights over who should feed the whale first but Selphie seems to be very dominant over the favour of her doing it.

**Selphie with Band Fetus 2 (Sophie)-** Whale Trainer for the Big Top Aquarium and Math Teacher for DSPHSAGS, the Fetus blader seems to never care about anything in life except for her ever arguing brother that forces her to do anything at his will. She almost gave up teaching Career Day when Hobio interjected to take out her boozley stuff.

**Clown with Band Kappacane (Klaus)-** Entertainer for the Big Top Circus, Clown seems to always joke around with his teammates although Julia doesn't find his humor very funny. That made Clown cry one day, Whales and Selphie comforting him while they both looked fuming with silent anger at the Percy Jackson blader.

**Toontown/ Incept Crossings:**

**Dojo with Duck Goof (Doji)-** a cruel, shady, and broody seme with a dark thirst for everything bloody in his castle. Likes to play the organ and stare at the silver moon every midnight.

**Tasteya Watergunny with Duck Lasher-** Unlike Dojo, with a personality of everything dark and bloody, this jovial pimpy seme is ready for anything that includes diamond blings and girls. The crabby Beyblade of his has un expectantly turned into a pimping cane bursting with blings waving with endless diamond shines. All of his quotes come from the famous rapper, Lil Jon. YEAHUUUH!

**Vacilliation Heights: (Team Wild Gang)**

**Kyoyo Tartargummybears with Rick Lenovo (Kyoya)-** Once the fierce lion blader has now turned into a cheesy spastic seme with a sense of stupid humor that could turn out to be annoying but not for long. Adores anything that is pure childish and loves to talk to his teammates by bursting out with random quotes that don't make sense.

**Hudson with Woolcanny Horsey us (Nile)-** More gothic than Egyptian, the Horsey us blader is more of an emo that likes to be all alone in his room by being a worrywart, saying that his 'Souuuul huuuuuurt' or his 'wooouuuundds wooouuuuld not just heaaal' or just die a simple complicated death. Slightly annoyed by Kyoyo and more longingly loved by Becky and Dumber, Hudson seems to enjoy company with his teammates for he confesses that he'd rather be alone brooding his dark thoughts and feels than be ever annoyed by the stupid loquacious lion.

**Dumber with Cunter Scoopyo (Demure)-** an expert at cooking weird things, Dumber's not just like Kyoyo. Taking this Irony very strange, the Scoopyo blader is actually smart (None smarter than SOOBAWSUH of course!) Anyway, hanging out with his friends seems too fun for he thinks that Team Wild Gang is the best team ever in FFB.

**Becky Hanway with Drake Bell (Benkei)-** an old friend of Kyoyo, Becky is a real eater and loves everything that Dumber creates. Laughing along Kyoyo's weird quotes, Becky encourages Hudson to like the lion's sayings but the Egyptian goth refuses to listen to what Kyoyo tries to say. He too agrees with Dumber. Team Wild Gang will live on forever.

**Chinese Store: (Team Damn Hu Zhang)**

**Da Wang Wang with Rick Ruzafa (Dashian)-** Laid back with a Latino gangster type of personality, Da Wang Wang cares about his other teammates in a low life way. Hanging out in the alleys of the Chinese Store, he always seems to be doing things that other homies would do. Party out at night in the streets, hang out with his 'chickos' or take a long drag and puff it all out. It was then that Mayday found him in the alley and brought him to work. 

**Lee-Yen with Thermometer Lakota (Chi-Yun)-** Original owner of the Chinese Store, Lee-Yen always finds Da Wang Wang too lazy to help whenever it comes to new items being shipped. Every time seated at the counter, he always secretly flicks through a magazine about hot cuties that roam around the Chinese Store.

**Chew Shun with Pose-ion Virginia (Chao-Xin)-** Store assistant of Lee-Yen, the Virginia blader always licks his lips towards anything hot being sold at the store and always plays with them everyday. Lee-Yen's other assistant, the cute girl of the 'Chinese Store' almost tackles Chew- Shun into a hug behind the curtains.

**Mayday (Mei-Mei)-** Oh, god I just told a little about her in the section of 'Chew Shun' -_-

Anyway, Mayday owns no Beyblade hot toy. Instead, she's a lovely cutie girl with the personality of everything asian. I bet to you right now that Lee-Yen's, Da Wang Wang's, and Chew Shun's eyes have now gone 'You know' at the sight of her all dressed half….. sorry, can't tell ya.

**Gan Gan Galaxy Semes (World Unknown)**

**Mossymoo Kadooyeah with Roy Stacker (Masamune)-** Similar to Kyoyo, Mossymoo has the personality of saying things that are utterly silly and childish towards the ever annoyed Gingka. The real Masamune, getting shocked by his own self as a seme, immediately shouts something about cake before he gets fully (temporarily) turned into a seme before their eyes. Yup, Tupperware does the trick.

**SOOBAWSUH Atari with Erth Egull (Tsubasa)-** The Egull blader, now his face framed with glasses with a smart appearance that Asians look like, **(A/N: I don't want to be rasict- not sure if this is racist at all or not but I'm just trying to bring up imagery.)** SOOBAWSUH is always occupied by playing expert level arcade games like those highly virtuoso asian gamers who play day and night. Totally trying his best not to mess up his vision, he also takes a little time for his other friend. Tsubasa, seeing the sight of his Seme, almost wanted to interfere and break the arcade machine. That's when the Egull blader gave up and let his sweet times of being seme end up in the Tupperware. 

**Yay Techno with Flem Libya (Yu Tendo)-** a small little jovial kid that's best not to hang out with. Why? Because not only that the sweet small ice cream cone that sat atop his head and sported a rather jolly looking smiley face, you better watch out of that AK-47 he's wielding! Yes, SOOBAWSUH thinks that weapon is just for a prop that fits in with the theme of his middle eastern Bey. Wrong. He's using it as a weapon to protect UNO and Gadaffhi from the militant normal bladers that are coming to hunt them down. It was then that his obnoxious screams filled up every corner of the Tupperware.

**City of OC (Team Stockbrokers):**

**Damn Yeah Heart! with Ladies per Sex (Damian)-** the seme from the Underworld of OC. Loves hanging out with girls (No wonder his bey is called that!) and getting annoyed by the in famous Crack and drools over his sexy paintings. Ruling the city with hotties was one thing when worrying about the city's stock market was another! Never seeming to care about the downfall of the economy, Damn Yeah always possess his riches underground. Went broke because of the Tupperware.

**Crack with Evee! He fell! (Jack)-** the in famous Yaoi art lover of OC. Crack always seems to please Damn Yeah whenever it comes to hot art. But drawing out the depression did not make the Per Sex blader crave with lust. Instead, that just made him angry and wanted to tell their leader to turn him into a desk. Nonetheless with the arrival of GGG, the pea-cocky artist ended his dreams in the Tupperware.

**Zoë A bus with Lame Nexus (Zeo)-** The Byxis Blader turned into the personality of a teenager girl. He everyday calls his friends and ends up with a non-stop chat for hours about 'how was your weekend?, let's go to the party, and oh shit, I'm late for my Cross Country meeting! Better go!' His fellow teammates don't acknowledge his behavior as 'weird' but very 'interesting'. One time Damn Yeah's eyes never left the ultra short shorts that he was wearing once to a dine out with Tommy. Crack almost snickered at the sight of him bending down to retrieve the wedding ring that almost made Tommy blush with pleasure. Yes, his girly acts made him spring clumsily into the Tupperware, thus ending Zeo's Seme with a final lovely kissy sound towards Gan Gan Galaxy. 

**Los Machosexos:**

**Ryugi Keshatoo with Lasting L-Drugo (Ryuga)-** Probably considered the most sexist seme of all in this story. Anything inappropriate, he has to wield the Yaoi cannon around our 4 great heroes of Fandom Fight Beyblade. As Grandmaster Fangirl's assistant to bring the non infected semes in her view, Ryugi starts up this non stop talk on how her plans are going to succeed by building up FFB and finally taking over the universe. One thing that he failed to aim (and miss) is her voice over the PA system, causing the laser to go astray. Obliging her orders, he and Gan Gan Galaxy end up in front of her throne, where his final days end right there by the Seme leader using her staff, she successfully sucked him into the crystal ball just at the top of the staff. The final battle of the Semes released started without him.

**Grandmaster Fangirl as Jessica-** Creator and villain of Fandom Fight Beyblade (A.K.A: Those Lacking Spines Blader Style) appears at the end of the Seme battle where she whines over her mom's order's to do chores around the house. Blowing with rage, she finally screams at the top of her lungs about her age, thus making her final disappearance at the conclusion.

**Fast with Bezerk Hollowgem (Faust)-** Makes a random appearance in Big Top.

**Additional Semes to be captured:**

**Bing with Vary Aries (King)**

**Tommy with Spiral Liar (Toby)**

**Zack Kerophane with Summer If I were a rat (Zero Kurogane)**

**~X~**

**Author's NOTE: Please Oh Please REVIEW!**

**I'm going to post the next chappie when I finish my KH fic. :)**

**BYEZ!**


	2. Blast Off!

**Woah! I am back with this awesome fic! Woot! 3 favs and 1 review! X3**

**Sorry, If Iv'e been a little late, I was too busy doing schoolwork and other stuff.**

**But seriously, it's gonna start out where Gingka and the gang hang out at the B-pit, talking to one another when- Fudge! Let's get over with this already! XD**

**Enjoy!**

There was nothing to do at the B-pit, currently located in Gainesville, FL. Wait. Gainesville? Argh! No, Metal Bey City, Japan! (Sorry If I'm mixing up with my Beyblade Timeline; I always write MFB stories without mentioning any Beyblades)

Anyway, Gingka and his friends were bored out of their lives without they're Beyblades.

Yu gave out a soft sigh, "Madoka? When are we going to Beyblade again? I really miss those times."

The former Beymechanic looked at him with her eyes clouded with sadness, "Those were the times, Yuu. Those were the times."

Masamune scoffed at Madoka's reply, finding it sarcastically silly, "So? You can buy them at the stores. That's the time to battle." Then he started to laugh.

Tsubasa rolled his eyes with a sigh while he flipped to the next page in his book he was currently reading.

"Hey!" Gingka protested back, "That's not a proper way to battle! You can't even command it with special moves!"

Masamune now sprang up from the couch, "WHAT? It's basically the same thing!"

Gingka now came cheek to cheek with him, "Grrr! Is not!"

"Is to!"

"Is not!"

"Guys! Stop it!" Madoka hollered over the argument.

Both of them now looked innocent as if nothing had ever happened and gave out a quiet cough in turn.

The Beymechanic still stared at both of them in the eyes, "It doesn't matter if a Beyblade is real or not. The only thing that we completely forgot about is the feeling to blade, not our Beyblades themselves."

"But then give me a clear explanation on where they FREAKIN WENT TO!" Yu yelled, demanding to know where the special battling tops spun off to.

Madoka now hesitated in confusion as she was about to reply, only for Ryo's face to appear on the announcements screen everytime before they started a Beyblade battle.

"Listen up WBBA! The awesome phoenix here for your daily news on Bey-…"

"Okay director!" Hikaru cut him off as she forcefully yanked his tie to the right, making him off view. Clearing her throat, she smiled and waved, "Listen up guys. I know it's been a long time since our Beys disappeared and we need to know where they went off to. Our luck of finding them cannot be complete if we don't have a possible way of contacting other bladers to ask them about this alarming situation."

"Easy." Gingka said, "Through Beybook naturally."

"Um, Gingka." Ryo popped into view, blocking Hikaru's face, "I think that's the smartest thing to do! I know-…"

"OKAY DIRECTOR!" Pulling him off view, Ryo's fingers formed into a peace sign as he said, "Phoenix out!"

The Aquario blader sighed, then continued, "Beybook would be a good choice, but how will you know if they'll ever come online? It's rare for a few bladers to use Beybook because they never use their account perhaps?"

"Maybe." Masamune shrugged while he kept toying with a yo-yo that he recently got from a dollar store in Florida.

"Hold on, Hikaru." Madoka came forward, "A better way to do it is that we each can start to leave messages to each blader. Probably that could work."

"Yeah!" Masamune argued with support, "I always try to message Toby and Zeo but they never reply back! What is happening?"

"Hold on!" she now gave out a warning to shut the unicorn blader's mouth. He, in return, gave out a whisper of 'sorry' and continued playing with the yo-yo. "The secret on why every blader that has Beybook that's NOT replying or even online is because of this."

She proceeded to press a button, bringing up an picture beside her face like what they do in news reports. A picture about the subject always appears next to the anchor's face.

Gingka and his friends gasped in confusion and awe. Masamune blinked twice, for his mouth slowly curved into a laugh, "Why? Why's the blader on the right dressed funny!?"

"Because the only reason why the blader on the right is dressed all funny is because he's a seme." Hikaru said, exaggerating the word _seme_ to a final ending to the discussion, but not for long.

Masamune now raised his head up in attention, "Seamen?"

"Masamoo moo, I think she said Seme." Yu helpfully corrected.

"And what's the difference between a seme and an original blader?" Gingka asked, Madoka also joining his gaze and pondering the question as if she struck it with a dart.

"No, where'd you get all this information from, huh Hikaru?" Yu asked, making the other two wonder about this interesting subject.

"Hyoma told me everything about this. I don't where he got it from, but basically a seme is an highly, exceptionally attractive, sexually charged, dominating and in most cases, very unlikable version of a-…"

"Nobody." All of the 4 turned around to see Tsubasa standing at the doorway of the B-pit. He walked over to them as he continued, "People without living hearts."

Gingka now pointed at him in confusion while he screwed up his face, "Ey, isn't that from Kingdom Hearts?"

"Yeah! That soooo fun! I loved being Kenchi's captain of the guard." Yu grinned ear to ear while his team mates (plus Hikaru) gave out looks of dumbfounded confusion.

"Yu!" the 5 of them said in unison.

Gingka resumed, "Anyway, Tsubasa. How did you know about this and NO Yu. Stop talking about our adventures throughout the KH storyline. Defeating the new Organization XIII was a pain in Pegasus's ass. Damn, Ryuga was sooo hard to beat atop of the Memory Skyscraper in The World That Never Was. Good thing I had a Nobody version of myself, Jinga."

The Eagle blader now sighed and blew a strand of silver hair that was covering his eye, "Duh Gingka! I own every game for the PS2, DS, and PSP! How do I know about this? Go check out the Ye Olde Keyhole! Hmph!"

"Okay, Tsubasa. Enough with the KH talk. Since you played the game, can you please tell us what's about this new subject, please?"

"Um, Madoka, I was about to tell you all of the information but okay, why not let Mr. Ootori say the story?" Hikaru smiled with a blush, hoping that the Eagle blader would like the rhyming. But it turned out that he just looked at everyone in turn. "Listen up, Team Gan Gan Galaxy! The reason why every blader's not responding to every message on Beybook is because they each have turned into a seme. However, before they turned into those preposterous beings who act all funny and weird, they were also known as 'Ukes.'"

"Woah, Tsubasa. What's an Uke?" Yu nervously wondered, glancing at every one of his friends. They, too, seemed to look at Tsubasa with their faces wondering in awe.

"An Uke is basically harmless, weak, sobby, effeminate and pathetic bladers who were too lazy to even type with one finger on Beybook. Thus came to that horrible day when the Gutless came over to Earth and kidnapped every blader, infecting them with the Gutless parasite that the villain of this story decided to use while ruling the other side of the MFB universe."

"And what's the other side?" Gingka asked in awe,

Tsubasa stopped pacing around and turned to face them with a smirk, "The other side you say?"

"Yeah! Yeah, Tsubasa! What's the other side?" Yu eagerly bounced around, begging his 'big brother' to blurt out the answer. Tsubasa however, took that as a yes, and calmly placed his hands on the Libra blader's shoulders, calming him down. A glint in Yu's eyes sparkled with excitement while Tsubasa flicked his hair back over his shoulders and looked at everyone of them in turn.

"C'mon, say it already!" Gingka begged, Madoka placed an hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

Taking a breath, he finally said it, "The other side of the MFB universe is technically called Fandom Fight Beyblade."

"Woah, Fandom Fight Beyblade?" Masamune snickered, "What? Is it like where all of the Beyblades are made out of fanfictions?"

"Nice try, Masamune, but no." Hikaru obviously corrected him.

"That's the universe where all of the bladers turned into Semes are living there, each of them scattered into their World Championship teams located in each world. It's our job to prepare ourselves to step into a new never seen before universe and try to capture every seme and bring them back."

"Wait, hold on." Madoka raised her hand, "First of all, how are we going to travel from world to world? Are we gonna use a portal or something? And how are we going to capture every seme? With our Beyblades?"

Silence ensued at the B-pit as Madoka just realized on what she had just said. "Oops." She apologized with a blush.

"Um, Madoka?" Gingka faltered, "Did you forget that we have no Beyblades?"

"Um right. Sorry."

"Heh, no it's fine. Sometimes bladers make mistakes that we don't see it coming." Tsubasa smiled, then stared at the ground in thought, "Hmm…. A way for you to travel. Good question, Madoka. Technically, me, Hikaru, Ryo, Hyoma, and Kenta have designed a surprise for you to take a ride through the FFB universe."

"Aaaahh! Really!?" Yu wondered out loud. "Where is it! Show it to me now!"

"Calm down, Yu!" Eyes closed, he gave out a sigh, "It's still under maintenance before we can fully lift off from Earth and into space. Better prepare yourselves because we are going on a seme hunt with _this!_ "

"Really!?" Madoka didn't like the sight of whatever he was holding. "A food container?"

"Uh, actually no." He swore Masamune laughing his ass off as he stared at the food container, all in a gleaming purple color, powdery glitter all around the thing for a shining effect. The words _Tupperware_ in small letters engraved the sides while the lid was marked with the famous company of _Hefty Glad._ Seriously, combining two brands sounded weird and was not cool at all. "This is a Tupperware. We are going to use this to capture every seme there is present if we can fit every one of them in there. By our luck if we can actually find a bigger one in any of the worlds of FFB, then it could be even more miraculous."

"Interesting, and what happens if we capture all of them in that small one?" Gingka asked curiously eyeing Yu who currently trying to take Masamune's Yo-yo, only for the poor guy to be fended off.

"Then it's mission complete. Oh wait, I almost forgot. If we capture a seme, they'll turn into a small purple sphere that is alive and can zip anywhere out of your sight. Those things are called a 'You know'"

"You what?" Masamune quired in confusion.

"A You know, which is basically their heart."

"They're nobodies, then!?" Gingka repeated with appalling confusion.

"Similar, but not properly like that. Just like a somebody is considered as an Uke." Tsubasa finished, collapsing on the couch and retrieving his book.

"So, then. That's it?" Madoka said, "All we have to do is be launched into space and travel to FFB?"

"Correct. And the quicker we do this, the more we can know from the other bladers."

Gingka now looked at Madoka with awkward look, "Well, then let's go to sleep and be prepared tomorrow."

"Right, I'm a little sleepy. C'mon Yu. Stop bothering Masamune about the Yoyo and let's get your annoying mouth to bed." Madoka steered the Libra Blader like a shopping cart towards the upper rooms of the B-pit. Pulling out an unhappy face, Yu crossed his arms in final defeat and his lips hung in a pouted way.

Once they were gone, Tsubasa closed his book and placed it on the coffee table, and making sure the announcements screen was turned off, (Hikaru decided to leave her's on; the screen now showed the lobby room to Beystadium.), he picked up the remote and pressed a button. Once Madoka came hopping downstairs to call them to sleep, Gingka gave out a yawn and smiled, "Well, then guys, better go off to sleep. Can't wait to see the surprise tomorrow."

"Yeah, me too." Masamune stretched and began to climb up the stairs. Following Gingka close behind, he started flicking his yo-yo up and down until they got into a tangled mess.

Tsubasa grunted in thought and hoped that everything will go well tomorrow. No matter how difficult the journey, he and Aquila will do it.

**~X~**

" _Tsubasa! Tsubasa! Tsubasa!" the repeated cheerings of his name thundered around Beystadium as his opponent came over to him to shake hands in congratulating him for winning the battle bladers tournament II. But before he could even reach the Eagle blader, a burst of white light was spread all over the crowds of the stadium, he almost wanted to cover his eyes from going blind._

" _You blade too well." His opponent started to say, offering his hand as he smirked. Tsubasa stared at it dumbstruck. The Eagle blader couldn't make out the face or the body, for it was purely engulfed in blizzard pearl white light. "Your skills have matched an expert's at the level of infinity. You have played your game too well, my friend. Thus under her orders, we WILL come and get you and the rest of Gan Gan Galaxy!"_

_Tsubasa almost reeled back in shock as the sight of a frightening dark figure with long pointy antennas and red eyes, striking fear and attraction through his body. "NOOOOOO!" Screaming, Tsubasa tried his best not to attempt to wake Yu up in real presence._

Collective inhales and exhales made him rise up right and stare at the blanket in darkness. Whew, it was just a nightmare. Sighing softly, he glanced over at the soft snoring Yu, sleeping like a baby.

Giving out one more exhale, he tried to ward off the nightmare from his brain. Who was his opponent? What did he mean by 'under her orders'? Who? A female DNA blader like Selene from Team Garcia perhaps? And what was that black figure that came to strike him down? Could it possibly be a Heartless- or Gutless even?

Pushing these thoughts aside, he laid down his head on the pillow, trying to go back to sleep peacefully.

_No._ Tsubasa thought, _I must find out tomorrow once were launched into space. I will never let myself or Gan Gan Galaxy down._

**~X~**

The next morning became a racket of excited thrills to Tsubasa, who rolled his eyes in frustration in response to the shrieking hyperness caused by the ever jovial Yu, hopping down the stairs and begging Madoka to show the 'surprise.'

"You need to ask Tsubasa about that." Madoka sighed, when she packed a few of her belongings. Gingka and Masamune did the same, slightly excited about being full blading heroes by capturing other blader's hearts or 'You knows'

"You know, Gingka." Masamune commented quietly while he re rolled his yo-yo into the correct ready position. "It's like the first time that were going out into space and explore new worlds. Man, I really hope that in wherever Toby and Zeo are, I hope they don't act all weird as to what Tsubasa had just said about Semes."

Gingka nodded while he took his grip string launcher and placed it into his bag just for Pegasus's sake, where ever he is and sighed, "Yeah, as he instructed us to capture every you know from each seme, I guarantee that we won't know where each seme is located if-…"

"We use this." Tsubasa held out a device in his hands.

The rest of Gan Gan Galaxy gasped in response.

"What? Is that what we use to find the Semes?" Masamune asked, looking at the thing like it's just toy, but not exactly. It was not an app that was ran on an i-pad exactly but as Tsubasa described, it was a tracking device, for semes.

"With this tracking device, we're able to locate any seme from any world. Thus telling us to capture them in exact order, we need to start with the first one on top then check mark our way down to the last and final seme. I know it could be somewhat confusing in which world they're currently located in, but with this lucky thing in my hand, it can track all of them at the same time. So, are we ready?"

Every one of them looked at each other and gave out a sly grin.

Gingka nodded, "Yup. We're ready, Tsubasa!" and held out his bag to show he was all set. Masamune did the same and the 5 of them trudged downstairs to a mini warehouse that was the size of a dome that could hold multiple planes. As they neared the ending, they looked up in surprise to see the WBBA advisors (Ryo, Hikaru, Hyoma, and Kenta), calmly standing next to a huge 'whatever that was', in a huge beige sheet covering the thing.

"Woah, Madoka maybe that's our surprise?" Gingka whispered eagerly towards her ear.

She shrugged in response, "Maybe. I'm 100% that's supposed to be it."

"Welcome Team Gan Gan Galaxy." Ryo greeted as the team stepped forward and constantly stared at the 'thing' covered in the blanket. "As Hikaru told you last night, or Tsubasa…" blushing towards the mention of the eagle blader made him smile in return. "-You guys are going for the first time on a dangerous mission that even the WBBA themselves proclaimed it as weird or fun." Seriously, Phoenix. The author has never heard of those experiences put together in a dangerous journey. (although you might have considered it as weird and fun if you were on this trip.)

"Um excuse me, can I talk now?"

Sorry Ryo, go ahead.

"Your job is to restore every blader's body by capturing their 'you knows' from their hyperactive seme selves and return safe and sound with every 28 'you knows' captured in the Tupperware. We'll stay at the WBBA HQ and keep track on how many you captured, and bring up any warnings of enemies such as Gutless that wander around in each world, got it?"

"Yeah, we got it." Masamune said, making Yu repeat the same thing. Tsubasa just smiled as to what Ryo had just said, about the mentioning of their enemies as Gutless. Of course he could tell his team about the dream that he had last night (or nightmare?) about the encounter of that dark figure possibly known as a Gutless. But deciding to tell them later once their launched into space, his attention now came to Hikaru and the others.

"Also, use the tracking device frequently for we might not know if any seme could possibly switch worlds or not and constantly move around. I want one of you to keep hold of the tracking device and the Tupperware for you guys might need it every time you land in each world."

"Right, Hikaru. I'll be the seme tracker and the Tupperware holder." Madoka was encouraged to raise her hand and smiled, happy to take this position from the mission they're shortly about to begin.

"Good." She confirmed, then looked at Ryo who placed his hands on the ends of the beige sheet, ready to reveal the 'thing.'

"Now?" he asked.

"Wait. Not yet." Hikaru assured, Ryo gave out a sigh and looked around the warehouse, whistling.

She then turned to Tsubasa, who was ready to be given anything for the journey. "Aside from the tracking device which is currently in Madoka's job of doing it, here is a seme and world list in print that I want you to check mark, just incase the tracker gives out glitching information."

The eagle blader now stared bluntly at the paper on a clipboard, that metal chain attached to a fancy WBBA pen. "Okay?" was all that he said.

The Aquario blader now finally looked towards the other 3, who were currently trying their best to peek under the beige sheet.

"C'mon! I can't wait that long! I wanna see it now!" the ever impatient Yu babbled, jumping up and down in impatience for the 'surprise.'

"Calm down Yu. Dang, you're so annoying." Masamune sighed as he rolled his eyes and stated a quiet argument with the fuming Libra blader on the other side of the 'thing.'

Meanwhile, Gingka walked over to his father, who was making a few quick checks to it, before they were finally able to lift off. "Dad? Um can we see it now?"

Ryo sprang up and gave his son a hearty pat on the back, "Why sure Gingka, but I have to see it when it's time to reveal the surprise."

"Ok!" Gingka grinned and turned towards sounds of footsteps clambering down the stairs. Tsubasa who was studying the seme list, raised an eyebrow in confusion. Heck, these names were totally weird!

But sorry, I can't tell you them yet for Madoka was also trying to mess with the tracking device and getting to know how to work this thing.

"Okay guys." Hikaru got their attention. "Iv'e told Hyoma and Kenta about the lift off and they've agreed to come watch you guys fly off into space. Only thing is the ship fuels with gummi blocks that I'm afraid you have to collect some on some worlds in FFB. Here is a 10 stock gummi blocks to start off with. If you need any more, go find some for yourselves." Handing them to Gingka, she gave out a nod towards Ryo. "And not to forget about your surprise."

Running over to the blanket covers, he gripped the ends in readiness.

"Here we go Team Gan Gan Galaxy! I present to you-…" Running in one direction while holding the covers, all 5 of them gasped in appalling awe. "The Gummi ship Externalist!"

It had the automaton body of a horse head with a unicorn horn centering the forehead. Large pegasi wings took the main wings of the ship while the supporting ends took the shape of an Eagle's tail. The two balance bowl marks from Libra's facebolt logo took the place of the lasers. It was mainly red in color with a little gold marking the eagle's brown tail and the light sky blue hue marked the tips of the pegasi wings. The words _GS Externalist_ were written in blue the sides of the ship, along with the Gan Gan Galaxy team logo taking the pegasi wings (on top and bottom). The condition was brand new and they assured the team that everything was okay and in order.

"No way! I'm the first inside!" Yu skipped happily towards the main doors.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Masamune caught up with him only for the Libra blader to make silly faces through the window. "It's not funny! Let me in!"

Giving out a laugh, he opened the door, "What's wrong Masamoo moo? So mad that you're not a ghost?" He then began to laugh even more.

Masamune growled in frustration and looked through the doors for the rest of them to come in.

"Good luck Madoka." Hikaru gave out a hug followed by Ryo who gave out a thumbs up. Then she turned to Tsubasa. "Tsubasa? You're currently the captain and leader of this team. Please make sure that they don't start any fights, most likely with Masamune and Yu and Gingka, too. I want this mission to be taken seriously. Focus on where each seme is located, track them down, and make sure not to let any captured 'You know' escape from the Tupperware, alright?"

Giving out a nod in understanding, he shook hands with her, "Right. I will."

The Aquario blader now clapped her hands in attention, "Alright, Team Gan Gan Galaxy, please clamber into the Gummi ship for the lift off will be about in 20 minutes prior to the exact timing of the journey to start."

"Yeah, baby! I can't wait to do this!" Yu was always the first one to be inside. As well for the others, they too, climbed into the Gummi ship.

"OMGS, this is too awesome!" Yu said happily as he gasped agape over all of the controls to the ship.

"Yu?" Tsubasa took him to one side as the others began seating themselves for the lift off, "Please. I know you're really excited for this journey but, I want you to behave while were off capturing semes, alright? Just a last warning, please don't start any fights with Masamune or Gingka okay? They are going to take this seriously so let us not be distracted by your annoying voice, k?"

"Okay, Tsubasa." Yu understood and took his seat.

"Alright. Everybody inside?" Ryo's voice came over the ship's PA speaker.

"Yes, we're ready." Tsubasa replied back, then punched in a bunch of starting controls to get the ship ready for lift off.

_Welcome to Gummi ship Externalist._ A female voice greeted them followed by a Kingdom Hearts heart logo appearing in front of them on the blue screen. _Gummi block fuel is currently full. The DEM engines are ready in use. Any more questions about the ship, please contact Square Enix- no wait sorry. The WBBA HQ located in Metal Bey City, Japan. Otherwise, happy journeying through space! :D_

"What's Square-Enix?" Masamune wondered out loud as Tsubasa sighed and looked at him in blunt, "The game makers of Kingdom Hearts."

"Oh."

"Hurry up! Can't we get on with the lift off already!?" Yu yelled, impatiently swinging his feet around.

"Yu! Are you now breaking your promise!?" Tsubasa now faced the younger with a stern look.

"Sorry." He shrank back and kept his cool.

"Hey, Madoka. Did you bring any snacks? I'm hungry." Gingka asked almost feeling that his stomach was about to growl.

The Beymechanic currently looked through his bag, "Sorry no licorice but I found Cheetos."

"Mine!" Masamune snatched the bag out of her grip and split the bag open, delighting the taste of the first bite.

"Never mind. I'm not that hungry." Gingka changed his mind about the snacks and looked forward when he felt the ship slowly tilting backwards. "Um, what's happening?"

"Were taking off, that's what's happening Gingka." Tsubasa said as the 5 of them saw the dome roof of the WBBA building slowly open, throwing out sunlight over the front of the ship. Pressing a button, the ship's female voice volunteered to do the count down. _Counting down to take off: 20, 19, 18, 16-_

"Hey! You forgot 17!" Masamune pointed out the mistake.

_Oh, right sorry. 17, 16, 15, 14-_

Currently in the lobby of WBBA, the advisors were staring at the screen of them taking off.

Kenta sighed as he heard the countdown of the lift off, "Man, I wish I could go with them."

"Hey, at least you'd get to see what they'd be doing right?" Hyoma cheered him up.

"Knock it off, Hyoma." Hikaru smiled, "At least we have to know that they're focusing on the mission and they're not goofing around like they usually do except for Madoka and Tsubasa."

"Hikaru's right. We have to bring back the other bladers in order to know where our tops went off to."

The sagittario blader smiled in return, "Yes!"

_9, 8, 7, 6, 5-_

"Here we go guys." Madoka said as Tsubasa gripped the controls and felt the thing thrusting with power.

At the final count of 1, the advisors clapped as GS Externalist took off like a shooting star flying upwards into space. Even though the members in Gan Gan Galaxy have never experienced this feel of becoming astronauts (except for Masamune who decided to volunteer to take a flight in fighter jet while they were battling Russia in the World Championships a long time ago.), they were screaming with terror and joy, their weight increasing and feeling heavier at the moment they ascended into space.

"AHHHHHH!" screamed Yu, defiantly not taking this as 'weird or fun' as Ryo had said but a little spooky to the little one.

The others laughed as Gingka said, "That was fun! Right Yu?"

"Uh, yeah. Right." Yu nervously lied as he kept his hidden feeling of the launch as terrifying death in his little heart.

Madoka glanced over to the unicorn blader, who was now admiring his Cheetos floating in mid-air.

"Hey! Anti-Gravity's soooo cool!"

"A bunch of snacks drifting through the air is now not cool at all." Tsubasa commanded the control board and with the press of a button, he made the delicious cheesy snack pieces all fall to the floor with a soft thump.

"Hey! What was that for!?" Masamune argued while he picked up the crunchy pieces and walked over to the tiny tube marked 'Food Waste Dispenser' "Man what a shame. I could've eaten these in mid-air."

Once he threw them out into space, Masamune peeked through the window to see a bunch of orange dots heading lazily in a random direction.

"Okay, I assume were heading in the right direction." Tsubasa announced as Madoka checked the tracking device and nodded towards his comment.

"Right, and as long as we're heading the right way, I'm afraid we have to go through Hyperspace."

"WHAT?" the rest of them said in shock.

She now shrugged with a blush, "Hey, it's the fastest way to get there."

"Alright, Hyperspace it is!" Tsubasa happily said as he pushed a button on the command board.

Yu now covered his ears in annoyance and shook his legs around violently in response to the eagle blader's absurd reply.

"I'm never coming with you guys ever again!"

Masamune now chuckled, "So that we can drop you off to any world of FFB and be stranded there for years?"

"I think not, Masamoo moo!" Yu argued and toppled over the unicorn blader.

Tsubasa sighed. Oh boy. This can get very silly and distracting.

**Whew! Im so happy to write out the first chappie! Ok, so I think I kinda lied for the KH fic first. I'm going to continue that later. If you're wondering what that KH fic is, it's called** _**Brother Earth, Sister Sea,** _ **posted originally on Archive Of Our Own, not on this website. No Kudos, less Hits. Whatever. :P**

**But I'll post the next chapter when I have time!**

**PLEASE REVIEW!**

**BYEZ!**


	3. Smells Like A Teenage Wasteland

**Oh gods! Sorry if I was on a late hiatus schedule but anyway…..**

**Yes, chapter 3! Here I come! The gang will be traveling through Hyperspace from the solar system all the way to the other side called Fandom Fight Beyblade.**

**Anyway, Enjoy! :D**

It was getting too much for Tsubasa to handle. Grabbing Yu by the shoulders (Gingka and Madoka took hold of Masamune.), he gave him a final warning look before the Libra blader could be sent off into space through the Food Waste Dispenser. LOL.

It had been like 2 days now since the GS Externalist was launched off the pad of the WBBA HQ and drifted lazily into space. As Madoka said in the last chapter, it would've been better if they traveled through Hyperspace, but first the advisors had to make sure that they were okay.

"Gan Gan Galaxy, do read me?" Hikaru's voice came up on the ship's PA speaker. Tsubasa responded by pressing the reply button, "Yes, were here."

"Good, I hear a lot of arguing. What's going on there?"

"Erm…" the eagle blader glanced back towards Gingka, Madoka, Masamune and Yu, all toppled one another in defeat. "Uh, it's all going well. They were just upset over some snack. Heh, that's all."

"Awesome, if you need anything else, or you're in trouble, just give out a distress call, alright?"

"Right." Tsubasa nodded and hung up.

"Guys, stop it!" Madoka yelled over the bickering.

The other 3 looked at the Beymechanic with a curious look.

Clearing her throat, she began, "Thank you. As Tsubasa said to all of us, we have to take this mission seriously! If we goof around constantly, then we can't save all the others bladers in order to know where our Beys spun off to!"

"Madoka's right." Tsubasa agreed, "The reason why were sent off on this dangerous mission is because-.."

"Ahhhh! Tsubasa we know already! Don't keep on repeating the same thing over and over again! I- wait! Where are you taking me!?" Yu now wailed as he kicked around, helplessly flailing around for himself as the eagle blader stood up rather too quickly and angirly picked him up and held his face near the large tube that read the 'Food Waste Dispenser'

"This is your final warning, Yu."

The Libra blader now took a nervous gulp and kept his cool as he softly plopped the boy down back in his seat, "Okay, I'm sorry Tsubasa!"

"Don't expect it." Giving out a stern look, the eagle blader now looked at the rest of the team.

"Hold on, Tsubasa. Gingka's not feeling well." Madoka informed the team as she placed her hand on the Pegasus blader's forehead while he slurred, "Not feeling tooooo good…."

"Really!?" Masamune now found this turned around, "First we get launched off to space, and before we travel to FFB, Gingka gets sick!? What kind of a journey is this!?"

"Lower your horn, Masamune." Madoka reassured as she gave Gingka a bottle of water, "Not many people get used to the feelings of space."

"What!?" he now faced the Beymechanic with a shocked look that almost could make her recoil backwards with surprise, "But we just started, and right now Gingka has to-…"

"Masamune, chill." Tsubasa glanced at Gingka who was slowly recovering from the light headache that annoyingly throbbed his head. Whatever the odds were, Gan Gan Galaxy had never faced any weird situations that interjected their journey around the world and battle the challenging teams in close match follow-ups that almost rejected the opposing team to a loss throughout the World Championships. If any storm didn't wind up and blocked their path through out the tournament, surely a bunch of space hooligans known as the enemies of FFB, the Gutless wouldn't make a surprise attack from behind and tow their ever damaged gummi ship to their 'master'. But let's leave that subject for now and return to this.

Right now Gingka slowly opened his eyes, for he didn't even feel a thing during their straight forward flight from the solar system to Canon Universe through hyper space mode (and not to mention Yu's obnoxious never ending screams in the cockpit when Masamune finally shut his mouth and pointed to the Food Waste Dispenser tube as yet, another warning.)

"Screw this! I'm going to bed!" Yu now crossed his arms in defeat and huffed in frustration towards the feeling of a non friendly Hyperspace feel that he just experienced. Once the door to the hallway rooms slid shut, Gingka now glanced at the side window and gasped in surprise.

"What's up Gingka?" Madoka came over and joined his gaze.

"Look." He whispered.

It was like they were in another world (more likely heaven in space.) A gate that almost never made they're eyes leave the sight of it.

For this was, as Tsubasa had said, that they were facing the gate to Fandom Fight Beyblade.

Currently the gate was conspicuously placed in the center of a tremendous asteroid belt out in the middle of nowhere, just a few negative x quadrants from The Big Top, six light years from the Land of Llamas just until you pass Camelot, take a left at the intersection of Latin America and Sherwood Forest and second star to the right—not to the left, that's St. Canard. It resembled nothing so much as it resembled a great plane floating in space, a white plane with purple bars protecting it from invading ships and a tremendous Keyhole in the center of it, the sort that would have any blader worth his stones peeing himself in anticipation of sealing it. Thank you very much, the narrator does not need you to write drabble about that particular image or any metaphorical interpretation thereof.

The G.S. Externalist approached at a steady speed, and the onboard computers were finally able to pick up some more useful expositional data regarding Fandom Fight Beyblade as a whole—and more importantly, performing a bunch of technological wizardry that the narrator is too lazy to talk about, Tsubasa was able to pick up a signal of a world beyond the gate.

"The computer is detecting the presence of bladers in a world just beyond the barrier of Fandom Fight Beyblade," the Eagle blader informed, sounding pleased.

"Blader we know?" Gingka asked.

"Yes, Blader we know," Tsubasa replied, before taking a minute to think that one out.

"Oh? Who is it?" Masamune urged him.

"What?"

"Nobody we know."

"Yes."

"Who is it?"

"Wait, wait, wait, did you mean nobody we know, or Nobody we know?"

"Oh—well then, no, I can't tell if it's any of ours."

"Ah, grammar jokes," Tsubasa smiled and leaned back in his seat.

The ship continued its approach at a lazy speed, finally coming within a short distance of the huge keyhole separating the dimensions from one another. Madoka kept a close watch on her computer monitor. "That's an impressive Keyhole on the gate to Fandom Fight Beyblade," she commented. "Is it sealed?"

Masamune warily flicked a piece of Cheetos before Tsubasa swatted it away with his hand. He then faced the Beymechanic and shook his head, "No, no. Anybody can get into Fandom Fight Beyblade. It's getting out with your brains and stomach contents intact that's difficult."

"What about this world on the other side?" Gingka glanced into a computer monitor on his side, studying it for any clues. "What is it picking up so far?"

Tsubasa shook his head. "Not much. The presence of at least one blader and many other worldly beings. I haven't yet scanned for our comrades' te- um…"

Staring at the others, he now gave out a faint smile and looked down.

"You almost said it, didn't you?" Gingka grinned, walking beside Madoka and glancing at what she was doing. Typical, she always loved space and almost wanted to hear more about it. Ever since she got to know that Russia's blading team, Lovushka's team captain, the ever handsome Aleksei and his in depth knowledge of space and the universe drew Madoka in love towards him instead of Gingka. But for the sake of the Pegasus blader in sight, she had to keep it hidden just to please him.

"I did not," Tsubasa snapped. "And in any case, it seems that the world I'm picking up is a fairly large one, right on the other side of the Keyhole. We'll be forced to land there before we can go anywhere else."

"No matter. We'll need to look around for our comrades'… you know anyway," Masamune said optimistically.

"We're close enough," Madoka said finally, standing up and smirking triumphantly. "Leave the ship here, Tsubasa, we'll teleport down and get this over with."

"You want to just let the ship drift around in zero gravity? Fantastic idea," Tsubasa snapped. "I don't like the looks of these readouts. This is no ordinary world we're landing on… it's coming back with all sorts of hostile negative energy and a huge concentration of Gutless."

"What other choice to we have?" Tsubasa retorted. "If you have to, invoke the DEM engines and let the ship drift wherever it likes. We're running on a time limit here."

"The DEM engines?" Masamune huffed. "I hate those! They're so…"

Tsubasa cleared his throat. "I am going down to the world for initial scouting now. If you two wouldn't mind, please resolve your issues and join me. That would be splendid."

"Oh, fine," Masamune smashed an important-looking red button labeled "DEM", and the lights within the ship began to blink on and off red and green.

"Prepare yourselves, Team Gan Gan Galaxy, for the most dangerous mission that we of WBBA have ever partaken in, especially for the sake of the bladers," Tsubasa warned them, rolling up his sleeves. "For we are about to enter… FANDOM FIGHT BEYBLADE."

"Yes, we know," Gingka and Masamune reminded him as the G.S Externalist vanished into a dark portal.

"You two wouldn't know a dramatic transition if it bit you in the ass," Tsubasa then smirked and headed off to bed, followed by the rest of the team.

**~X~**

The DEM engine—short for "Deus Ex Machina" Engine— was developed several decades ago by the most brilliant of blader scientists in all of Metal Bey City—that is, Yuki and Mark after a night of heavy drinking. Ironically, the device itself was created as part of a Crappy Plot Device to skip over a bunch of tedious parts in the very story you are now reading. It was first intended it to be a weapon for use in battling their enemies, namely the hoards upon hoards of increasingly more vicious Heartless that descended upon their city. It became apparent after a few uses, though, that the DEM engine made things almost a little bit too easy.

So, rather than be completely thrown out, the DEM engines were recalled and instead installed in several selected examples of the Blader's gummi ships, including the G.S. Externalist, perhaps in preparation for a situation just like this one.

Or maybe that was just another Deus Ex Machina.

Tsubasa awoke with a normal start, thankfully a nightmare did not fall upon him as he peeked through the cockpit room. No sign of the other bladers. Good. As soon as he pressed the button to pull up the screen of contacting Hikaru, he released a terrified scream that shook the whole ship and made the rest of Gan Gan Galaxy awake from their peaceful sleep. (Thank Earth Eagle that Yu was not space sick from this journey so far.)

"Oh my god, Tsubasa what happened!?" Madoka suddenly rushed in, a shock of surprise etching her face as she gasped in horror at the sight of the eagle blader being….. 3D animated?

Originally, Takafumi designed these characters to be 2D. There is no 3D anime. Tsubasa took a moment to study himself, along with Madoka who felt his fingers being much rounder and smooth. The feeling of moving was slightly different. It was not at all sharp and normal. It was somewhat movie like, where all of the emotions and movements there are…. Oh gods. The author has no way to describe it at all. However, Masamune and Gingka entered, surprisingly amazed by their looks.

"Madoka? Can you tell me what happened to us?" the red head bothered to ask, moving his arms around to get that movie-like feel.

"Don't ask me Gingka. Ask the FFB universe." She replied, staring at the reflection of herself on the main screen of the ship.

"Cool! It looks like we just came out of a Pixar movie!" Masamune gushed at the sight of himself, being very jovial today.

Madoka rolled her eyes, finding the Unicorn blader very stupid now.

A stray beeping sound came up from the control board of the ship, catching Tsubasa's attention to the important message announced live by Hikaru.

"Listen up guys. I heard about something new from Hyoma. Once you enter the FFB universe, I'm afraid that everything there living or not living is considered to be 3D animated. I know it can be hard to understand but we actually don't know what could affect things to become 3D animated. So, don't freak out by how you look. It's something normal in this universe."

"So, does this also apply to Semes, too?" Gingka asked, wondering if the rest of the blader's semes could be enjoying themselves by their surprising appearance.

"Well, I think so. It-…" Hikaru was about to reply to Gingka's question, only for an annoying blonde brat to barge in with an annoying helpless scream.

"Ahhh! Tsubasa! What happened to me?!"

Hikaru sighed and rolled her eyes in frustration.

The eagle blader also sighed and placed his hands on his shoulders to calm him down. "We're 3D animated. There."

"W-We are?" Yu now wondered quietly as he looked at his other teammates with surprise and curiosity.

Tsubasa now shook his head and gestured Hikaru to continue.

"Okay, as I said earlier, yes. They are affected by the Gutless parasite that possibly makes them become in their 3D animated forms. The only odd thing is that you guys aren't and shouldn't be affected by the parasite, therefore you became 3D animated."

"Uh, Hikaru. You just said that anything living or non living in the FFB universe is 3D animated, right?" Madoka pointed out, helpfully reminding what she had just said.

"Oh, right. Anyway, your first stop should be in DSPHSAGS."

"DSPHAGS?" Masamune quired, finding the abbreviation tremendously long. (had he known now, for a school.)

"Destiny Sanctuary Peak High School Academy Grammar School." Tsubasa said, proud of his pre-knowledge of the FFB universe.

"Dang, that must sound like a weird school, right Madoka?" Gingka shook his head in confusion.

She nodded in return as she kept hold of the seme tracker, announcing that they're nearing the first world in FFB with 3 semes scattered about in either the school or elsewhere.

Despite Yu's complaints, once Tsubasa finished his dramatic speech with Hikaru, the DEM engines kicked into high gear, creating a vortex at the back of the ship that opened up a long path from the G.S. Externalist through time and space itself, through the great keyhole of Fandom Fight Beyblade and all the way down to a massive and ever growing planetoid within a few light years of the Keyhole itself.

By use of some more science terms and their teleportation, when we next saw our three protagonists, they had warped into existence… rather, they warped into non-existence… well, hmm. How do I phrase that?

They appeared in the middle of a lush green field of grass. There. Good enough.

Immediately after landing, it was very apparent that this wasn't the sort of world they were used to.

There had been some changes to the wardrobes of all five of our heroes. Instead of they're everyday blader outfits, they each wore somewhat more "earthly" garments that appropriately matched their somewhat personalities.

Madoka had gained a small pair of sophisticated glasses and a fine twill suit, the sort often donned by librarians or burnt-out college professors with nothing left to cling to but their fancy suits and the fact that their students are throwing away good money and so MUST sit in front of them and just plainly listen for a few hours a few times a week.

Tsubasa's hair had been pulled back in a ponytail, and he sighed at the stereotypical cliché of the scientist's garb he'd been forced to adopt—a white lab coat over a suit of his own.

Gingka thought he looked strange in a giant sweat suit or muscle shirt, and so was instead wearing the outfit of a biker gang leader—leather vest, ripped blue jeans, and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

Same thing applied to Masamune, who did not look like he was enjoying his outfit at all.

Yu was the opposite. He loved everything that was happening to him in FFB. First the 3D animated thingy. Now the assigned clothes that the world (or school possibly?) had given them an outstanding look of awesomeness appearance. The Libra blader was now dressed in more appropriate manner of an orchid picker, the personality could be also said towards his original blader clothes. And, not to mention, a basket in his hands.

"Nice disguises, team. God forbid any of the natives see us in our blader clothes. We'll have six thousand wannabe bladers following us around in the hopes of being swept away on a magical adventure," Tsubasa spoke the cynical speech of someone who's been there and done that, examining the world guide book (or clipboard with fancy WBBA pen?) that had appeared in his hands.

"What is this place called, Tsubasa?" Masamune asked, curiously craning his neck to have a look at the guidebook.

"According to the guidebook and that large, dramatic graphic there in the center of the screen, this world is called…"

DESTINY SANCTUARY PEAK HIGH SCHOOL ACADEMY GRAMMAR SCHOOL

"You told it to us before." Yu reminded him.

"Anyway, that must be the aforementioned school," Masamune motioned to a large building with impossibly fancy architecture a short distance away.

"You've got to be kidding me," Gingka sneered. "For one thing, aside from the ridiculously corny name, you cannot have a 'high school academy grammar school'. 'High school' and 'academy' are silly together as it is—but grammar school is the same as 'elementary school', which is for children ages 5 to 12, not teenagers. And second of all— why would anybody want to live in a world that was nothing but high school all over again? And why would anybody possibly want to invoke it in Fandom Fight Beyblade?"

"They say high school is the best four years of your life," Masamune shrugged.

"Who's 'they'?" Gingka sneered. "If those four years are to be the pinnacle of my life, I might as well go jump in front of a train."

Madoka gasped, "Gingka! Are you crazy?"

"You didn't have a good time in high school, did you, Gingka?" queried Masamune, almost chuckling at the thought of the Pegasus blader wailing in misery that he completely failed high school. But seriously, no. That never happened to him. Ever.

Never one to hold grudges, Gingka shook his head. "I never went to high school. He did. And he hated it. Lousy football players, sucking all the funding into their cesspool of aggressive adolescent sporting events for the weak of mind, stealing chemistry sets and copying tests off the smart kids, stupid teenage girls moaning and crying about all the drama in their lives… 'Jinga! Jinga! Oh my god, Jinga, you won't believe what Sasha said to me!' And the food… Let's not discuss the food."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear about your Other's traumatic educational past," Tsubasa proceeded to open to the back page of the guidebook, which had conveniently transformed into a small operational scanning computer. "But let's focus on the task at hand. The Blader signal is getting stronger by the second."

"It must be one of the teams—perhaps Wang Hu Zhong?" Gingka looked optimistic at this guess.

"Perhaps. The signal's coming from somewhere in the building. Also, we're picking up a second, weaker signal that the guidebook can't identify. It, too, is somewhere in the building," Madoka closed the book and began on her way towards the impressive school.

"Brace yourselves, guys," Tsubasa suggested, following close behind. "I have heard rumors about worlds like this. This could be a very difficult task indeed…"

"Aw, c'mon Tsubasa! It can't be that hard!" Yu happily skipped along behind him, "Even then, you don't know what to expect if enemies could be hard to fight!" Then he did his signature chuckle that made Tsubasa smile faintly.

"Yes, correct, Yu."

"Oh hell," Gingka said disdainfully a few minutes later, standing in the foyer of the commons/cafeteria area. "It's even worse than I thought. It's a 7th-12th grade school."

"Middle schoolers," Masamune sneered with disgust. "They think they're so great because they're technically teenagers."

"Stay with me, team, the signal's getting even stronger," Tsubasa told them, though even he was noticeably disturbed by the blithering, insipid cesspool of teenage angst and pointless spectacle. All around them, crowds of eerily familiar students were engaged in the daily grind of —surprisingly, not a lot of schoolwork. It was mostly internal dramatics, emo whining, fights, relationship troubles, ridiculously overcomplicated love triangles and polygons of all shapes and sizes, oblivious faculty, the unsettling religion of prom-worship, and who was sitting next to who at lunch when they said they'd sit next to some other person and how MEAN they are.

"HEY! What you punks doin' on our turf?"

A terribly stereotypical voice halted our five heroes from their mind-numbing reverie, and they turned around to see an 11th-grade boy who was either doing his best to look like his clothes didn't fit him, or like he was making some kind of fashion point. Seifer crossed his arms and furiously sized up the three adults, Fuu and Rai (Fuujin and Raijin for the FF8 purists) close behind. In an attempt to dress like street punks, they all looked like they'd pulled their clothes out of a garbage bin, either that or gone dumpster diving behind the Goodwill and just put on whatever they happened to find, matching or no. There was a lot of camouflage… or spaghetti stains. Hard to tell.

"What're a bunch of adults like you doin' around here? We ain't gonna stand for you trespassin' in

our hallowed halls!" Seifer thumbed the side of his face.

"Adults!?" Yu took a furious stand. "Were kids!"

Tsubasa then intervened and grabbed hold of Yu's mouth, "Sorry about that. I-…"

"That's right, y'know!" Rai added mindlessly.

"Pedophiles," Fuu accused shortly. As always.

"Who are you to be strutting around like you own this place, boy?" Tsubasa sneered.

"What, you ain't heard of me? Name's Seifer—I'm head of the DSPHSAGS Disciplinary Committee, and we're the biggest bad asses on this campus!" Seifer struck a dramatic pose. "Ain't nobody messes with us! Not even a couplea tough-guy adults!"

"Who ain't supposed to be hangin' around the commons at lunch time, y'know!" Rai struck a fearsome pose behind Seifer.

"Against the rules," Fuu pointed out.

"Yeah, we've kicked more asses and skipped more classes than any other chump around here! We ain't been to class in like, two months, ain't that right, guys?" Seifer boasted.

"Yeah, ditchin' every period y'know!"

"Imperfect attendance."

"Question," Gingka lifted a finger.

"What, punk?" Seifer turned on him furiously.

"If you haven't been to class in months, why in the hell are you still here?" Gingka pointed out in a quiet, contemplative tone. "You realize that most high schools have attendance policies regarding such things? They don't have to put up with you for so long if you are dead set on failing all your classes and simply roaming the hallways like a gang of hooligans."

"What I want to know," Tsubasa added, "Is why you come here to hang out and then fail to actually attend your classes. You make the effort of waking up, brushing your hair, bathing, and apparently, pulling clothes out of the rag pile and coming here… and then you fail to attend your classes. Your utter failure as productive human beings astounds me."

Madoka was quick to agree with her team. "And even better, you come to school and appear to work as a sort of rule enforcement squad. Your logic is incomprehensibly stupid. Isn't there somewhere else you could go to waste your pathetic lives? A shopping mall? An amusement park? Anywhere even more remotely interesting than a high school?"

There was a long moment of silence as Seifer, Fuu and Rai took some time to really question why it was they were in this situation.

Finally, the silence ended as Seifer burst out with, "Aw, SCREW you! You guys better come up with a real good reason why you're here, or I'm callin' the principal on your ass right now!"

"Yeah, what, you here to pick up your kids, y'know?" Rai asked.

"Career Day," Fuu said shortly.

It took only a short glance at one another to solidify this story. "Career Day," Tsubasa replied seamlessly. "We're here to give special presentations for Career Day."

"Oh yeah! Ms. Sophie didn't say nuthin' about Career Day!" Seifer threatened.

"Ms. Sophie?" Gingka's eyes widened. "Who would give that woman a teacher's licensure?"

"We think the same thing, y'know," Rai shrugged.

"Anger management," Fuu nodded.

"Stop getting off topic!" Seifer smacked his toady in the back of the head. "Well, Career Day or not, you adults better watch your asses! And I better see you in class or else I'll know you was lyin' and I'll kick your ass!"

"You don't go to class," Masamune pointed out.

This time, an outwitted and disillusioned Seifer, realizing the idiocy of his own plot conventions within the very fabric of this world, was off in a corner sobbing about his wasted youth as Fuu

and Rai tried awkwardly to comfort him.

"I just love crushing the spirits of those uppity little bastards," Gingka looked quite a bit more comfortable with the surroundings now, cracking his knuckles and smiling pleasantly.

"Yes, well," Madoka was back on the ball, having opened the world guidebook and glanced at the computer monitor on the back cover. "That may have been a more useful conversation than we thought. Sophie is in this world. We should locate her and assess her condition."

"Now, not necessarily. It could just be this world's invocation of Sophie," Tsubasa reminded him.

"The signal we're getting won't belong to Sophie if she's not the real one."

"Yes, but in either case, we ought to find out where this Blader signal is coming from," Gingka repeated. "Let's get to searching. The sooner we get out of here, the better. There could be Gutless gathering here at any time."

In their intrepid search for the source of the signal, Gingka, Masamune, Tsubasa, Yu and Madoka could not possibly have been privy to the plethora of exciting plotlines going on around the commons at that very moment. The narrator is sure they would have been heartbroken to know this. Or rather, not heartbroken… oh screw it.

**~X~**

At the table nearest to the wall sat young Sue Tsukihimemiyakage, a tenth grader who had good grades, excelled in the art program, and believed in herself and her own opinions and didn't particularly like falling into trends. This, of course, made her the biggest, ugliest loser in the entire school in the eyes of her peers. Young Sue didn't mind, though—she spent her lonely lunchtimes at the end of the "dork table", working on her sketchbook and listening to books on tape.

Sue's two best friends were named Hayner Kugiyama and Pence Teriyaki-Smith. Hayner was an eccentric nerd who wasn't a bad sketch artist in his own right. His hobbies included dancing and eating tater tots. This particular day, Hayner had borrowed a piece of paper from Sue and was drawing pictures of ligers. Pence was a foreign exchange student, slightly short-spoken with an adorably hilarious lack of knowledge about the customs of whatever country Destiny Sanctuary Peak High School Academy Grammar School was located in. He was studying a Japanese dictionary for some reason.

"Boy, I hope I do well on the literature exam later today," Sue said, rubbing her eyes behind her thick glasses and taking a break to sip her chocolate milk.

"Gosh, Sue. You're so good at literature. You'll do fine, okay?" Hayner wheezed in an oddly familiar nasally tone.

"Hai Sue-chan, you studied domo domo domo much!" Pence assured her.

Also seated at the "dork" table was an awkward eighth grader named Vivi Kokoyimajima, He was never to be seen without his hat, even though it was against school dress code to wear a hat.

He was an on and off acquaintance of Sue's gang, but spent most of his time of late (between making up moves for the mail-reply chess game he was playing with somebody in the state penitentiary across town) staring forlornly at the next table over.

"Hey Pence, you fat lard! Do you want some tots?" Hayner wheezed, holding out a bucket of

tater tots.

"Hai, Hayner-sempai! Watashi wa wanta tots domo muchos, minna-san!" Pence raised his hand at

the offer. "Oy Vivi-chan, you wanna tasty tots kawaii dono!"

"Ah! Uh, no thanks, Pence," Vivi sighed longingly and continued to gaze at her.

"Her" was Natasha Yukimoratachi, the most popular girl in school, captain of the cheerleader squad, and permanent resident of the "popular" table, conveniently located a few yards away from the "dork" table. Currently text messaging someone on her cell phone, she was an oblivious little thing with a shock of blonde hair and that stereotypical giggly cheerleader attitude. She did not notice Vivi staring at her, nor did she notice a lot of things: her current principal quest in life was to find the perfect dress for the formal tonight. And she needed it to look PERFECT with her boyfriend and his absolutely spectacular hair color!

Natasha's somewhat unlikely boyfriend was Raikou Ginpachikun, who up until he started going out with Natasha had been quite famous as the school's standard issue rebellious goth kid. He still dressed in all black and wore black eyeliner at the edges of his turquoise eyes—old habits are hard to break, after all. Raikou serves as further proof of Natasha's utter obliviousness, as he, his parents, his friends, and all of their respective grandmothers knew that he was a flaming closet case, merely holding up a sham of a relationship with Natasha to save himself a little respect among the student body.

He was spending his lunchtime staring at the asses of every young man who passed him by.

Currently in scope was the muscular ass of Raikou's unlikely best friend, the captain of the Destiny Sanctuary Peak High School Academy Grammar School Flying Wuggles football team, a handsome young man named Sorren Wanahakaruugi. It shouldn't have taken you too terribly long to figure out that Sorren was the captain of many other sports teams as well, and possessed the nicest hair and the pearliest white set of teeth in the school. It should also be mentioned that Sorren was as dumb as a rock, failed all his classes, and despite his rumored sexual virility, was actually the world's most innocent, naïve, twitter pated little virgin. Twenty points for the Disney movie reference.

Tossing a football up and down above him, Sorren approached his friends and smiled like an idiot.

"Dude you guys should've totally seen the sweet touchdown I made at the game last night! Coach said it saved the entire game for us—we were totally tied with two minutes left in the fourth period…"

"Quarter," Raikou took some time out of his ogling to correct him, in the most seductive voice possible.

"Huh?"

"Fourth quarter."

"Dude, I'm totally the captain of the football team," Sorren snapped. "Don't be all up in my grill."

"Whatever," Raikou replied broodily at having been shut down. "It's time for class anyway."

As he rose from his stool and stomped off to Ms. Sophie's fifth period language arts class, he spotted senate president national honor society baccalaureate scholarship recipient Olette Yuuuki stapling up colorful posters for that night's advertised Spring Fling Prom Hop Formal. His eye twitched and he abruptly ripped it down, wadding it up into tiny pieces which he proceeded to sprinkle them heartlessly in Olette's hair.

"HEY!" Olette screeched as he continued on his way. "Raikou, you jerk! Yeah, like nobody's gonna recognize that move from that one teen movie! How CLEVER you are!"

**~X~**

Ms. Sophie had thick dark rings under her blue eyes, a frazzled mop of periwinkle blue hair on her head, tortoiseshell-framed cat's eye glasses and a voice that sounded like she gargled with cigarette butts and vodka every morning. She was an extremely apathetic woman—for god's sake, she graduated college with a doctorate in philosophy. She was supposed to have gone places with that degree!

But no, it's only after you're out in the real world that you learn that nobody knows who John

Stuart Mill and Aristotle are, and nobody particularly cares, and you're going to be forced into a meager-paying job in education no matter what you'd previously expected.

And by GOD did she hate children.

As the students from her fifth-period language arts class slowly filed in, she was seated on her desk in a far-too-short plaid skirt, a white blouse with the buttons popping out around her cleavage, and a fairly visible black lace bra. She appeared to be flirting shamelessly with somebody's father and overheard conversational snatches included, "… off to the broom closet, nobody'll be lookin' in there" and "… come on baby, you can light mama's fire next passing period…"

Meanwhile, as per the plan, Team Gan Gan Galaxy were sitting in tiny, uncomfortable plastic chairs along the wall of Ms. Sophie's room when Raikou and the other students arrived for class.

All 4 bladers tried to glance over Madoka's shoulder as she sat, analyzing the signals picked up by the guidebook.

"Anything?" Gingka whispered impatiently.

"No," Madoka shook her head and pointed at one of the readouts on the screen. "The Blader signal we caught isn't coming from Sophie."

"She's certainly sending out some kind of signals, in any case," Tsubasa commented as Ms. Sophie sat down on some poor father's lap and started caressing his hair whispering something about bad, bad boys. Across the room, some unfortunate student sank deep into his chair and thought of chocolate rabbits and happy things.

"But not the one we're looking for. That must be this world's invocation of her, and the real one is still out there somewhere," Masamune reasoned.

"Then sitting in here giving Career Day presentations is a waste of time!" Yu hissed under his breath. "We should be tracking that signal to its source!"

"Patience, Yu," Tsubasa warned him. "The obnoxious little twit in the beanie may have been onto something—we will look suspicious wandering the hallways of this place alone, and the last thing we want is to cause uproar."

Across the room, Sue was innocently preparing her spiral notebook to write down every word anybody said, while Sorren and Raikou were whispering something back and forth to one another.

"I bet you can't make Sue into the most popular girl in school," Raikou challenged.

"What? Of course I can, dorkface," Sorren replied haughtily. "What's the time limit?"

"By the time the formal starts tonight," Raikou smirked.

"Right—and what are we betting?"

"A kiss."

"What?"

"I mean… a kick. In the ass. I'll kick your ass if you don't," Raikou recovered smoothly. "Because

I'm not gay or anything."

Sorren raised an eyebrow. "Who said you were?"

"Nobody. Because I'm not. Yeah. Totally straight. I love chicks. Yay boobs."

"Okay, okay, everybody pipe down or I'll reinstate corporal punishment—and I do love spanking," Ms. Sophie snapped, turning her attention away from the unfortunate father and back to the class. "Let's get this thing over with, I'm cravin' a smoke. Welcome to Career Day. Today's the day we bring in all your lowlife parents so they can lie about their stupid jobs and build up your hopes and dreams of escaping your humdrum, pathetic, demeaning middle class existences until you shell out 100,000 munny for college and find out your worthless degree qualifies you to be senior burger flipper down at the Grease N' Go, and not much else. Those of you who don't drop out and end up crack-addicted burnouts under a bridge downtown can maybe bother some of these jerks at work to set up internships as indentured slaves and glorified coffee-fetchers all summer with absolutely no reimbursement."

The students met her introduction with blank faces. One girl in the back row suffered an existential crisis.

"Okay, folks, who wants to go first?" Ms. Sophie sat on her desk again and crossed her arms impatiently.

But before anybody could volunteer to lie about their stupid jobs, there came a knock on the door.

"Dammit! I'm trying to EDUCATE here!" Ms. Larxene snarled, snapping her fingers. "Vivi! Get the damn door!"

The hapless boy was snapped out of his daydream about asking Natasha to the formal that night to turn the doorknob and introduce a tall, dark, mysterious and handsome stranger. Team Gan Gan Galaxy recognized him immediately.

He was a rather a short and handsome man with the tan and physique of a California surfer god, yellow eyes the color of gold, long, luxurious bright yellow hair styled back in an curly afro, and a delicate scar lining his left cheek. A slim, sophisticated red scouter covered his right eye. He wore a stylish Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt and jeans beneath his black janitor's apron and the apron, too, was designer and more expensive than it ought to have been. His features were soft and dreamy, and he was most certainly the loveliest and most effeminate depiction of Tobio Oike, the Capricorn blader they had ever seen. So of course, something was terribly wrong.

As all the female students in the room (and Raikou) paused to stare dreamily at Tobio, the prettiest janitor in the Destiny Islands School District, the little computer monitor in the back of the world guidebook began beeping incessantly.

"Like totally begging your like total pardon, babe," the author got a little carried away with Tobio's accent, "I come knockin' round these parts to pick up your like… trash can, babealooie."

"You can pick up more than that if you want, big boy," Ms. Sophie fanned her face and unsubtly uncrossed her legs, gesturing to the trash can next to her desk, filled to the brim with nameless papers and empty bottles of hooch.

Brushing strands of beautiful Pantene Pro-V-shampooed hair out of his eyes, Tobio strode across the room and as he passed our five heroes in their chairs along the wall, he glanced at them and gave an unmistakably evil smirk.

He left a moment later and the hormones in the room began to die back down to normal levels.

Ms. Sophie fanned her face and cleared her throat. "Ho ho ho… Now then! Sexy distractions aside, we're gonna go around and see what everybody does to pay for their booze and hookers. Starting with you there, on the end."

"I'm the president of a banking firm," the mother, Sophie indicated, spoke up, "And I find your comments on booze and hookers very offensive."

"I find your haircut very offensive," Ms. Sophie waved it off. "Move it on down the line."

"I collect garbage for a living."

"I'm the lifeguard trainer at the rec center downtown."

"I scalp tickets."

"I work a busy desk job that leaves me too tired to do anything when I get home but watch reality

TV and eat pork rinds."

"I'm a sex therapist."

"And then there were five," Ms. Sophie smiled at our heroes. "What do you do for a living?"

"We follow janitors," Tsubasa announced, as the three of them stood up and bolted after Tobio.

The door slammed closed behind them and after the awkward silence, Raikou raised his hand. "Ms. Sophie, can I get an internship with them?"

**~X~**

"This is fascinating information, really," Gingka said mostly to himself as the trio hurried through the school hallways in search of the creepy Tobio. "I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier! Now

I know precisely what happens when a Gutless takes a… you know."

"Then get explaining," Tsubasa urged him. "What in the worlds could have happened to make Tobio so… so…"

"Pretty?" Yu offered.

"Yes. Ugh." Masamune rolled his eyes in disgust, totally not liking the sound of that.

"Ah, but that wasn't Tobio," Madoka smirked. "Remember the unusual signal we were getting? It was coming from him. That was his… you know."

The rest of Gan Gan Galaxy paused, then glanced at Madoka with immense concern evident on their faces.

"His what?" Masamune gaped.

"When a Heartless consumes somebody's heart, they transforms into a Heartless, while at the same time a blader is created, right? Well, when a Gutless steals somebody's… you know, they turn into a being I like to call the Uke. Their… you know is transferred to Fandom Fight Beyblade, where it becomes an entirely separate being. I'll call it a Seme," Madoka explained. "The janitor we just saw is Tobio's Seme. Unlike the Uke, who are harmless, weak, sobby, effeminate and pathetic, the Seme are exceptionally attractive, sexually charged, dominating and in most cases, very unlikable."

"Yes, she's correct." Tsubasa agreed.

"So, if we defeat the Seme, will the Capricorn blader turn back to normal?" Yu looked at Madoka hopefully.

"I'm not sure. But whatever the case, we should follow him," she pounded her fist in her other hand. "Just as we are the top-ranking team of the Battle Bladers, the Semes will be the top-ranking agents of the Gutless. Destroying them one way or another will be instrumental to our mission."

"Something's off," Tsubasa interrupted Madoka's slew of exposition and pointed to the signal tracer.

"The Blader signal is back, and it looks like Tobio's Seme is heading towards it."

"Really? Where is it?" Masamune asked hurriedly.

"It looks like the Seme's leaving the building," Gingka pointed to the signal. "He's headed into an apartment building across the street from the school."

"Then let's not waste any time. We'll corner him there!" Yu glanced around to check and see if anybody was watching, then opened up a portal of light and the five of them stepped inside.

**~X~**

The apartment was dark, desolate and utterly trashed—crumpled newspapers, used-up boxes of snack food, countless empty pints of Ben and Jerry's sea salt ice cream and cigarette cartons were strewn across the room in a huge stack. The furniture was grimy, torn and worn-out, and the only light was to have come from a broken light bulb swinging eerily back and forth from the ceiling fixture. The TV played a fuzzy combination of several channels, casting blue shadows on the wall.

The front door opened and Tobio's Seme pushed his way in, carrying a large black garbage bag full of papers (and the empty hooch bottles from Ms. Sophie's room). He smiled snidely at the prone figure on the couch, and dumped the garbage out to add to the pile, digging through until he found what he was looking for—a single paperclip.

He smiled again as he walked over to the TV to a complicated-looking antennae device—and the narrator implies even more complicated than the standard antennae devices, with all sorts of plugs and wires and doohickeys to screw in. The Seme unfolded the paperclip and delicately placed it between two of the wires, and the TV screen suddenly flickered to life with some kind of strange alien reading.

After a moment, a shadowy figure appeared through the symbols and spoke.

_"HOBIO NIKE. HOW PROGRESSES YOUR MISSION?"_

"It's totally going sweet, dude," Hobio kneeled before the screen (tripping on bits of garbage as he did) and nodded respectfully. "I got myself a totally sweet set up down at the school and like, nobody knows what's goin' on, seriously, dude."

_"IS THE SUBJECT RESPONDING TO OUR EXPERIMENTS?"_

"Yeah, dude, so far so good, y'know?" Hobio glanced over his shoulder at the helpless figure on the couch, throwing him a faint grin. "He tried to get away when we let our underlings go all psycho on the castle but they totally snagged 'im on 'is way out…"

_"AND THERE HAVE BEEN NO SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITIES? NO SIGN OF ANY ATTEMPTS TO STOP OUR PLAN?"_

"Nope, not that I saw, dude," Hobio snickered. "I got a little worried there t'day when I saw

Team Gan Gan Galaxy hangin' out down at the school, but I figured ya maybe had to invoke 'em in this world, even stuff out a bit, y'know?"

There was a long moment of silence.

_"GAN GAN GALAXY?"_

"Um, yeah, dude," Hobio scratched his beautiful face. "Didn't you like… send 'em on down here?"

_"AS IF!"_ a tremendous, sinister voice boomed from the other end of the broadcast, making the Kappa-cane blader twitch slightly. _"TSUBASA IS A HAIRY, UGLY EAGLE, GINGKA'S AN OLD GEEZER AND MASAMUNE IS A BIG STUPID CHATTERBRAIN! DO YOU THINK I WOULD EVER SULLY MY BEAUTIFUL FANDOM FIGHT BEYBLADE WITH SUCH FILTH?"_

"Er, uh… guess not," Hobio shrugged sheepishly. "So's'at mean… they ain't from around here?"

_"IT MEANS THAT THEY ESCAPED FROM THE CASTLE! AND IT MEANS THAT THERE ARE NOW THOSE WHO WOULD STAND AGAINST MY BEAUTIFUL PLAN_

_FOR COMPLETE DOMINATION OF THE UNIVERSE AS WE KNOW IT!"_

"Dude, take a chill pill," Hobio waved his hands. "Ain't no need to freak out, man! I'll deal with 'em myself!"

_"HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING ON THE EXPERIMENT? WE CAN'T ALLOW HIM TO FALL BACK INTO THE HANDS OF THE_

_ENEMY! HE IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR BEINGS IN FANDOM FIGHT BEYBLADE—AND IF WE FAIL TO CONVERT HIM TO OUR SIDE, THERE WILL BE BACKLASH SO TERRIBLE IT COULD DESTROY OUR ENTIRE PLAN!"_

"Don't worry, dude, he's almost done," Hobio assured the stressed-out voice. "He'll be done in a couple hours, and that's ALL. While he's hangin', I'll just head on down to the school in search of Rye Terra and lay the total smack down on the Bladers. That cool, dude?"

After a long moment of fuming silence, the voice spoke. _"FINE. BUT DON'T FAIL ME, HOBIO NIKE! I WASTED MY TIME AND ENERGY MAKING YOU A BEAUTIFUL BISHOUNEN RATHER THAN WIPING YOU OUT OF EXISTENCE ENTIRELY, SO YOU BETTER NOT FAIL ME."_

"You got nothin' to worry about, Grand Master Fangirl," Hobio grinned at the screen and seconds later, the signal went dead.

He stood up, stretched his arms behind him and turned back to the figure on the couch—a depressing, filthy, pale, scrawny and bony creature in worn street clothes, dazedly stuffing his face with more ice cream. His elbows were pin-pricked, his nose had remnants of cocaine dust on it, and he looked to be in the later stages of a severe drug addiction—apparently this is sexy to some deluded people in Fandom Fight Beyblade. He was a pathetic shell of a man, reeking of smoke, Tag body spray and complete and utter misery.

"Well, y'hear that, dude? The Grand Master Fangirl wants me t' have you ready to go by tonight! An' you know what that means?"

The figure lifted his head pathetically, showing off his weary, bloodshot eyes and the tearstains on his cheeks. "You'll finally rid me of this terrible, miserable nonexistence?"

"Nope," Hobio grinned. "With the help of Rye Terra, we're uppin' your angst levels, Reggi Wizucha."

Reiji gave Hobio a noncommittal look and let his head sink back down into the cushions of the couch. "Effing yay."

**IN THE NEXT CHAPTER:**

**Team Gan Gan Galaxy will battle Hobio to save their… wow, is Reiji in some sorry shape. Is it even worth it anymore?**

**And WHO is the Grand Master Fangirl! WHAT is her plan? AM I going to tell you right now? NO! SO STOP ASKING!**

**APOLOGIES AND MISCELLANY:**

**English, Japanese and Spanish languages, I'm sorry.**

**I have never seen Napoleon Dynamite. I have a funny story about those damn talking keychains though. Ask me sometime and I'll tell you why I REFUSE TO WATCH THE MOVIE.**


	4. Since You've Been Gone, I'm Not Okay

It was going to be easy, or so it seemed to our five heroes as they bolted out the back door of

Destiny Sanctuary Peak High School Academy Grammar School and back across the football field towards a small block of apartment buildings and restaurants. Of course, they had not yet come into contact with any Gutless and as narrative coincidence would have it, that's exactly what they ran into on about the fiftieth yard line of the football field.

At first, the hoard of vaguely humanoid creatures before them appeared to be nothing more than your usual preppy high school students with bleach blond hair, pasty complexions, acne problems, designer brand T-shirts and iPods blasting Kelly Clarkson music. There was no mistaking, however, the rather inappropriate-looking symbol on their abdominal regions, the pointy teeth and their obvious lust for… you know.

"Ah, we've been discovered," Tsubasa remarked as the hoards of Preppy Gutless surrounded them, drooling, twitching, and mumbling frightening things like "Laguna Beach last night was so intense" and "Ohmigod I can't operate in the morning without Starbucks!"

"They'll have to be dispatched, then," Gingka held out his hand and the ground beneath him folded, giving rise to a pillar of stone and his trusty Pegasus keyblade.

"We haven't got time for this!" Yu grumbled but was quick to summon his Libra shield out of thin air. "We're immune to their parasite, but I don't fancy finding out what happens if we get bitten or nicked in the leg."

"We'll just have to make it quick," Tsubasa's Eagle Keyblade whirled into existence around him and the five of them struck suitably intimidating poses, as the Gutless graciously allowed them enough time to gather their weapons before attacking.

The ensuing bloodbath is far too dramatic and exciting for the author to properly convey here, but there were numerous highlights; Tsubasa impaling five Preppy Gutless at once with his Eagle, Yu freezing and shattering a number of them, and Gingka squashing many completely flat with his mighty hawk. It would make a mighty impressive FMV sequence. In no time at all the battle was over and the Gutless lay in a bloody pile on the football field.

"Doji had trouble with those?" Gingka couldn't help but laugh to himself as they casually walked away from the massacre. "Honestly. We could have gently tapped them in the shoulder and they'd have keeled over."

"This is only one type. I'm sure they get much more formidable down the road," Tsubasa pointed out.

"Yu, we need to have a little talk about your battle laugh," Masamune said out of nowhere a moment later.

"What?" Yu turned to his colleague with a dangerous glare. "What do you mean?"

"Listen to you over there. HAH! HOO HOO HOO. Your laugh is… in a very, very sugarcoated word…" Masamune searched for an appropriate term. "Effeminate."

"It most certainly is not!" Yu snapped furiously.

"Squeaky, then."

"Shut up!" he roared, "I'd rather have a high-pitched laugh than a faux British accent like you!"

"Excuse me? Faux?" Masamune looked very insulted. "How long have you known me, Yu—two

lives? And I've always spoken this way."

"You're from Japan like the rest of us, you pretentious Anglophile—"

"Guys!" Madoka hollered over the argument. "Kindly stop your bickering so we can reach the source of this signal? It's growing weaker by the second and the longer we delay, the less likely we are to rescue our blader, whoever it may be."

Masamune and Yu begrudgingly relented as the Beymechanic motioned for them to follow him across the street.

"And anyway, arguing about voice actors is stupid," she added.

**~X~**

Meanwhile, in room 302 of the South Ash field Heights apartment building across the street,

Henry Townshend had been trapped for a little over five days. The inside of the door had been chained shut by a dead hippie in a flasher coat, the windows were locked, nobody could hear when he banged on the door and cried for help, and cryptic messages from a dead guy in the ceiling were littered around the floor.

But that's another story.

Next door, in room 304, Hobio was in the middle of preparing to deal with Reiji once and for all. He'd unfolded the sofa, a Jennifer model that conveniently held a Hide-A-Torture-Slab, and strapped the weak, deflated Reiji down to it in the most non-leading-to-a-yaoi-scene method possible. He was currently in the middle of setting up a large stereo system and had taken out a nasty-looking injection machine filled with some dark, glowing liquid.

"Look on the bright side, dude, you totally don't gotta suffer like this no more after we get all this into ya," Hobio smiled and patted the tank of liquid, labeled "EVANGELION ™ BRAND 100% PURE ANGST. NO ARTIFICIAL COLORS."

"Uh… huh…" Reiji mumbled, halfway into a coma. He didn't struggle as Tobio's Seme hooked him up to the machine, filling his veins with Grade A Organic Moping and Misery.

"Aw, dude, don't look so down!" Hobio patted his victim on the arm and reached over to the stereo, flipping a switch and blasting some mood music at top volume. "Here dude, some MyChem oughta get you in the mood—always works for me, dude!"

"BURNIN' UP! JUST LIKE A MATCH YOU SLIDE TO INCINERAAAAATE—"

Reiji's eyes glazed over. His snake pupils got very small. His lips opened as though to scream in torture, but no sound could come out. He could only writhe in agony on the table as he could feel his nonexistent pulse quickening, his palms sweating and his… you know starting to shut down.

Unfazed about Rye Terra not arriving yet, Hobio pulled out a DS to play with his Nintendog, Shnooky.

**~X~**

Speeding up the corridors of the apartment building, our three heroes could only barely hear the roaring chords of pure straight emo blasting from the third floor, followed shortly by a horrified shriek that could only belong to one member of the Dark Nebula Organization.

"That'll be Reiji," Madoka nodded decisively, as the computer finally pinned precise identity on the signal. "But not a Seme or an Uke—a genuine signal."

"Which means he's still unharmed!" Tsubasa pounding a fist into his palm. "But probably not for

long, with that freakish Tobio Seme tending to him."

The music got clearer as they got closer and closer to the apartment. "MCR? That sick son of a bitch!" Gingka snarled furiously.

They arrived in the third floor hallway and the music and the screaming intensified from room 304. Madoka tested the doorknob but found it securely locked and dead bolted.

"Allow me, guys," Gingka summoned up Pegasus again and prepared to beat down the door, until he was interrupted by a small voice near the floor.

"Excuse me sirs! I need to get into that apartment to see my mother!" a frightening, chubby little boy in a striped T-shirt lisped and tugged on Gingka's blue jacket, pointing to room 302. He was the sort of creepy child that you feel bad being afraid of, but who you just know is going to grow up into a heart-stabbing psychopathic serial killer with aspirations of unleashing Silent Hill to awaken an apartment building and change the world as we…

Well, but that's another story.

"Okay," Gingka shrugged and simply widened the arc of his swing, quite effortlessly taking out the entire wall, doors and all.

Together, Team Gan Gan Galaxy headed into the trashed apartment before them, and the creepy little boy squealed in horror at the damage, rushing past a very surprised and weary-looking Henry Townshend next door.

"Dudes, who invited you in?" Hobio was understandably not pleased to see them as our heroes kicked down the door to the back room, horrified at the sight before them.

"The man you are torturing is a member in good standing of the Dark Nebula Organization," Tsubasa said sternly, pulling Eagle out of the air again. "And you are a being made of the… you know of another member of DNO. We are thereby obligated to destroy you and stop whatever the hell it is you're doing."

"Haha, yeah, totally, dudes, we heard all about you," Hobio snickered and crossed his arms, having a seat on the Torture Slab where Reiji lay motionless. "Couplea freaks too ugly and unpopular to fall into our beautiful little society we got goin' on… too bad, too bad. And so you come around tryin' to mess up what the rest of us can have an' you can't? Totally uncool, dudes."

"You and your kind were never supposed to exist!" Gingka snarled, keyblade in hand. "You're the run-off dredges of a Blader, who isn't supposed to exist in the first place—there is NO part for you to play in this world, you wretched monster!"

"Aww, dude, you're just jealous—an' that ain't nice, is it, Reiji?" Hobio leaned down and tapped Reiji on the shoulder as the redhead began to stir.

"Mmph… I want you to pwess your body into mine and tell me evewyfing's gonna be all wight…" Reiji mumbled in a quiet, giggling sort of voice.

They were too late. Reiji Mizuchi had become an Uke.

"You bastard!" Gingka growled, lifting Pegasus over his shoulder. "How dare you try to destroy our organization like this? You will pay for your crimes!"

"Now, now… threatening assault is a felony assault in these parts, friends!" a new but somewhat familiar voice said from the doorway of the closet, as Reiji's Seme stepped onto the scene. He looked eerily similar to the Reiji we all know and love, if that Reiji had been eaten by a Hot Topic outlet store and spit out into a weight loss clinic. He sneered evilly at his would-be rescuers, a cigarette pressed cleanly between his lips and his arms crossed. "Felony assault! Got it memorized?"

"Looks t' me like you dudes are surrounded," Hobio smirked, "Meet my new buddy, Reggi Wizucha."

"R-E-G-G-I W-I-Z-U-C-H-A. Got it memorized? 'Sup?" Reggi grinned and flashed them the international playboy sign (the wink, the click, the point). "Any you boys wanna take a ride on my pony?"

There was a long pause.

"Your what?" Masamune muttered incredulously.

"You're horny. Let's do it. Ride it. My pony. Got it memorized?" Reggi grinned. "Leave that little wuss on the table and let's go get it on, hot stuff."

"Oh for the love of nothing," Tsubasa slapped his forehead in disgust. "Okay, we get it. Reiji has a catchphrase he likes to say, and Tobio has a California surfer-style accent. Is it really necessary for them to use it in every single line of dialogue, even when it doesn't make sense?"

"Dudes, it's called 'characterization'? Like duh," Hobio rolled his eyes.

"Ah, no. Rather, it's called 'I'm a moron and I can't write believable dialogue!'" Masamune snapped.

"You guys are mean," Reggi hissed, drawing out two snake shaped chakrams that more than a little bit resembled his Uke counterpart's. "Stomping around here and criticizin' our work like you own the place and like you're some kinda almighty Grammar Gods—total snobs, got it memorized? You know what you three are?"

"Humor us. What are we?" Tsubasa challenged.

"You three dudes are homophobes," Hobio pronounced slowly and very deliberately.

"H-O-M-O-P-H-O-B-E-S. Got it memorized?" Reggi grinned.

"I would hardly consider opposing the defamation of our characters to be an act of homophobia, sirs," Gingka pointed out.

"There's no use arguing with them, Gingka. They're Semes. They have no brains," Tsubasa sneered. "They're nothing but brainless, beautiful empty shells that exist only to have badly written sex with one another at the slightest drop of a hat, no matter how unlikely or illogical the time, the place or the motives. You will never be able to reason with them."

"We exist for one purpose and one purpose only," Reggi cackled maniacally, drawing closer to our heroes as though to attack. "When our kind takes over the universe on the other side of Fandom Fight Beyblade, we will spread… and soon, not only all of Fandom Fight Beyblade, but all of Canon

Universe will be ours to command! Got it memorized?"

"But in order for that to happen, dudes," Hobio joined Reggi in a round of his own evil laughter. "We gotta snag your… you know."

"And once we do, you'll be simpering Uke wusses on the ground, and we'll take your Semes and do with them whateeever we want," Reggi snickered.

"Speaking of whatever we want, dude," Hobio interrupted, scratching his cheek. "I totally wanna do you right here, dude."

"Only if I get to be on top—"

"That's it!" Tsubasa roared, "This conversation is OVER!"

And as he spoke, six Eagles went flying through the room in a tremendous whirlwind, accomplishing a number of extremely important tasks all at once.

Eagles numbered one and two made a direct beeline for the two Semes on either side of the trio, number one imbedding itself rather deeply into Hobio's hollow body and number two just barely missing Reggi. Eagle number three impaled the main core of the Angst Injector, sending a shower of sparks across the apartment and igniting several piles of garbage into flames. Eagle number four circled around its master in the air as Masamune and Gingka ducked under it, and returned to Tsubasa's hand in time to halt Reggi's lunging attack before it even started. Eagle number five followed through on Hobio, throwing the Seme back ten yards and into the wall.

Eagle number six hung around for a minute before mercifully destroying the blasting stereo system before Gerard Way could burst into another soulful ballad about suicide pacts and cutting your wrists and all those kind of cheerful things.

Four of six returned to Tsubasa's side and he sneered triumphantly at the destruction they'd wrought.

Yu leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Show-off."

"Very impressive, Tsubasa," Madoka nodded astutely, "But Reiji's Seme seems to have escaped."

"We'll follow him later. Right now we're going to be busy dealing with this trash," Tsubasa turned back to Hobio, who was quite uncomfortably pinned to the back wall of the apartment and looked like he was in a lot of pain.

"DUDES! That was so totally UNCOOL!" Hobio moaned, reaching up and pulling up the edge of his scouter, inside of which was set a small mirror. "How's my hair? Is my hair okay, dudes?"

"I don't believe it—he's not even missing an eye!" Masamune groaned, rolling his eyes. "I guess he's just too ugly if he's disfigured, hmm?"

"Your hair is as unnaturally lovely as usual, Seme," Gingka approached Hobio, cracking his knuckles. "You seem to be trapped there. I don't imagine you'll be going after your friend."

"I got two Eagles pinnin' me to the wall, big dude, you think I'munna go surfin'?" Hobio spat. "As if, ya big dolt."

"Honestly, why is there such a stereotype that because I am a Pegasus blader, I'm an idiot?" Gingka glanced over his shoulder at his teammates, who could only shake their heads and shrug. "If I had a dime for every time somebody wrote me incapable of speaking in the first person…"

Madoka pulled out the computer and did a quick calculation. "The number of Fandom Fight Beyblade invocations of you, times ten, adjusted to the appropriate dollar amount. Two percent margin of error."

Yu frowned. "I wonder where they get that idea."

"Ignore them, Yu. Let's see what we can do for the Sirpant blader," Tsubasa motioned to the pathetic Uke of Reiji still strapped to the table.

Unfortunately, it seemed, not much. Reiji was in an advanced state of emo depression, sobbing despondently and clinging desperately to Gingka and Tsubasa as soon as he was released.

"Winga," he murmured pathetically. "WHERE'S WINGA?"

"Oh hell. We were hoping you could tell us, Reiji," Gingka said calmly. "What happened to you? What did he do?"

"I was… it was… where's Winga?" Reiji sobbed. "Winga… I miss Winga! I want Winga to put it up my—"

"Whoa, too much information," Tsubasa shut him up promptly. "Let's have a look at you… What in the worlds were they trying to do?"

"Extract his Seme," Gingka said reasonably. "His signal was that of a Blader's just before we got here. Now it only reads an Uke."

"That means he must have escaped from the castle before he caught the parasite," Madoka frowned.

"The Gutless must have apprehended him somehow and taken him here to get his… you know the hard way."

"D-d-d-d-do you guys know where Winga is?" Reiji whimpered. "G-Gingka, you're not going to wape me, are you?"

"There they go with the rape again!" Gingka groaned disgustedly. "Is there just something about me that screams 'sexual predator'?"

"It's probably to do with your age," Tsubasa said lamely, as he was preparing to interrogate Hobio and testing just how well the two Eagles had him pinned to the wall. "I wouldn't take it personally, Gingka. He's obviously not in his right mind."

"Though this situation is somewhat fortunate, actually," Madoka said, having a seat on the couch.

"If we track down Reiji's Seme, we have his Uke here as well, rather than back at the HQ, as is the case for Tobio. We can perform a little experiment and figure out how to restore a blader who's lost their… you know."

"Brilliant idea, Madoka," Tsubasa smiled. "I do love an experiment."

"In the meantime, we have bigger fish to fry," Masamune approached Tobio's Seme, his sideburns looking like they meant business. "You're going to tell us all about your species, Seme, and how we can restore our fallen comrades to their former selves."

"As if," Hobio snickered, and made a mocking expression. "You dudes ain't gonna make me do ANYTHING. I ain't scared o' you."

"Aren't you?" Tsubasa drew one of his Eagles and held the business end of it dangerously close to

Hobio's neither regions. "I suggest you start talking, Seme, or we'll have a dissection in addition to our little experiment later on."

"DUDE, NOT THAT!" Hobio lost all semblance of composure, "YOU AIN'T GONNA TAKE MY WEE-WHACKA-DOO, DUDES! PLEASE! I'LL DO ANYTHING!"

"Weakness: … you know," Madoka took notes, wanting to know as much as possible.

"… Wee-whacka-doo?" Gingka didn't want to know, at all.

"And what happens if you do take a direct hit in the… you know?" Tsubasa queried.

Hobio's horrified expression said it all.

"They die," Madoka sneered and wrote it down.

"Splendid. How convenient for us! And once you die, Seme, will our comrades be restored or must we take another step in urging them back to their former selves?" Tsubasa continued, circling

Hobio's No-No Place with the point of his Eagle.

"Y'know, dude, I ain't sure," Hobio looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Then we proceed, blindly, in the noble pursuit of science and knowledge," Tsubasa said dramatically, glancing over his shoulder. "Madoka, Gingka, could one of you bring me the nearest closable container you can find? Preferably air tight."

"But Tsubasa, we already have one." Yu reminded him.

"But we left that one on the ship. Now come on, I don't have any more time to waste."

"There's a Tupperware here on the ground," Gingka held it up, a small square model with a sea green lid, suitable for tortillas or leftover spaghetti.

The eagle blader looked pleased to see it. "Ah, perfect. Then let's see what happens, shall we?"

As excited as the author was to write a scene featuring the graphic castration and subsequent death of an extremely "bishounen" Tobio, she slowly began to realize that such a frightening, gory thing might attract a lot of unwanted attention from certain internet fetish subcultures. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and not that she has any right to bash anybody's personal preferences, but she also has a right to protect her own sanity by preventing such a thing from being rejoiced about in her own parody.

Not to mention there's probably a doujinshi about it somewhere out there.

Failing to notice that there was another seme captured along with Hobio Nike, Tsubasa also recognized Ryutaro's Seme in the Tupperware dashing around with Hobio's you know.

"Awesome. Two down. 25 more to go." Tsubasa check marked the captured semes of the clip board.

So, in the manner of all good, dramatic and suspenseful stories, we will now be cutting abruptly away to a different and far less important scene—perhaps involving kittens.

**~X~**

Unfortunately, the author is out of kittens at the present time, so we'll instead head back across the street to Destiny Sanctuary Peak High School Academy Grammar School to check up on our favorite horrible alternate universe characters.

It was currently After School. After School is hands down the most important part of the day to the students of DSPHSAGS, because it only slightly edges out Lunch Time for when the most dramatic, life-shattering events take place. Rather than actually say, going home, the students would frequent the school commons and the courtyard outside the main entrance, "skateboarding", "chatting", "hanging out" or whatever it is you kids do after school these days.

After School today did not hold very much promise for sweet, innocent little Sue and her friends, who sat under the officially-dubbed "Dork Tree" immersed in their own activities and an in-depth discussion of what they planned to do instead of going to the formal this evening, and also last night's Star gate episode.

"Gosh . Who needs to go to a formal anyway? It's totally retarded okay," Hayner whined, putting the finishing touches on his "VOTE FOR PENCE" sign. "You guys want some tots?"

"Sure," Vivi accepted a small paper cup of Hayner's tater tots, nibbling on them and still staring longingly at Natasha across the way. "B-but still… I-I was thinking I m-might go."

"Vivi-chan! NAN DESU KAN? Domo kawaii arigatou Mr. Roboto!" Pence said incoherently,

"Watashi wa totally koibito Naminé-sempai!"

"Aw, Vivi, I know you really have a crush on Natasha and everything," Sue said gently, patting the younger boy on the shoulder. "But she has a boyfriend. You're only setting yourself up for heartbreak if you try to go after her. Raikou and her are really close, you know?"

On the other side of the courtyard, Raikou was really close to touching some hot male upperclassman's thigh as they sat together on a bench under a tree.

"I know," Vivi sighed. "B-but still… wouldn't we make a nice couple? I-I could… t-take her out for dinner… a-and we could go to the conventions together. Sh-she could dress up like Miaka and I could be Tamahome a-and we could kiss for picture poses in the hallways…"

"Iie… Vivi-chan, Naminé-sempai is so gaijin she komo dachi tomo teriyaki sukimura sakura the

Rearu Fork Brues," Pence crinkled his nose and shook his head. "Iie iie, no way Jose."

"Gosh , Vivi, that sucks," Hayner shook his head. "Maybe next year I'll make people vote for you, okay."

Vivi sighed sadly. "Th-thanks, Hayner, I guess."

"Aw, cheer up Vivi," Sue said with a smile. "I've got an idea—let's forget about Natasha and buy some tickets and go as friends, all three of us."

"Four," Vivi corrected.

"Huh? You, me, Hayner…"

"Gosh, Sue, you forgot Pence," Hayner gestured over his shoulder.

"Pence?" Sue glanced at the exchange student with an eyebrow raised. "I didn't know Pence hung out with us."

"Yeah, Pence! He's only with us all the time! You're retarded!" Hayner said accusatorily.

"GOSH, idiot!"

"Sue no BAKA! Baka Sue forgetta Pence-chan existikimori?" Pence looked at her mournfully.

"Baka no aho, Sue! FEERINGSU no wound!"

"Well, God help me, guys, I don't understand anything he says!" Sue said defensively. "I wasn't sure if he was hanging out with us or just… I don't know… following us around speaking some

gangraped version of Japanese to bother us."

"Japanese? There's no such country in this world! Now you're making up geography! Gosh, Sue," Hayner rolled his eyes in disgust.

As Sue and her friends continued making witty satirical jabs at irritating parody trends, across the courtyard the Popular Kids were putting into motion their bet to turn Sue into the most popular girl in school.

"Get ready, you guys," Sorren said haughtily, hitching up his belt and coating himself with Axe body spray. "I'm gonna knock her off her feet so fast and so hard she'll be popular by the time she gets back up."

"I like, doubt it, okay?" Natasha huffed, filing her nails. "Sue's WAY too far-gone to have any remote semblance of popularity thrust upon her, am I right, Shnooky?" she smiled ditzily and nudged Raikou's foot.

"Huh?" Raikou was sidetracked by words like "fast" and "hard" in Sorren's last dialogue. "Oh, yeah."

"Last chance, Raikou—you got anymore rules or provisions you wanna lay on me?" Sorren asked him.

"I'd love to," Raikou mumbled distractedly.

"Huh?"

"I mean…" Raikou shook his head to regain concentration. "Let's, uh… let's see. You have to take her to the formal tonight…"

"What?" Sorren objected suddenly. "B-but I was just planning on standing near her, thereby elevating her coolness up and through the roof!"

"That'd be like, way too easy—I say you should make him make her the formal queen, Shnooky!"

Natasha suggested, grasping Raikou's arm and cuddling it like it was a video iPod with a pink skin.

"Yeah, that's a great idea—Sue's gotta win formal queen tonight in order for you to win the bet,"

Raikou said with a maniacal grin, eyes alight with imaginations of different scenarios for the kiss- I mean… ass-kicking.

"What? But guys, that's IMPOSSIBLE!" Sorren screeched indignantly. "Everybody knows that vote is totally rigged—Olette's gonna win formal queen because she's on student senate!"

"Someone from senate ALWAYS wins the dance royalty, Raikou!" a nearby and as-yet-unnamed popular student said, horrified. "It's the way it's always been!"

"Yeah, dude, that ain't fair—Sue'll never win! The votes have already been counted and incinerated to destroy all evidence!" Sorren whined.

"Well you better make up some new ones, then," Natasha teased in a sing-song voice. "There she is sitting under the Dork Tree, Sorren! Hurry, go and get her to go to the formal with you!"

"Yeah dude, go!" Raikou gently shoved Sorren towards his date with destiny, though Sorren stopped in mid-stride. "What, chickening out?"

"Uh… no. I need you to take your hands out of my back pockets," Sorren complained over his shoulder.

"Oh. How'd those get there?" Raikou withdrew his hands from Sorren's ass and waited until nobody else was watching to rub them against his cheeks lovingly.

Conversation under the Dork Tree had turned back to G4's coverage of this year's E3 ("Wii totally owned you lamers!") when the three geeks (and maybe Pence, but nobody really knows what he's saying) detected something amiss in the world.

"Do you guys… feel something strange?" Sue asked the others.

They nodded quickly. "Yeah, i-it's like… something doesn't belong here," Vivi murmured.

"Minna-san, sensor no kawaii window no tabamashi yuki ma, watashi wa nana ka ga ju jitsu saruto kotatsu ni wa!" Pence babbled.

"GOSH, you guys! There's totally a cool kid under our tree!" Hayner shrieked in terror and pointed at Sorren, who'd just arrived.

"Um… may the force be with you, or something," Sorren raised his hands in the "Live Long and

Prosper" symbol, and scores of nerds across the internet had strokes at the author's careless mangling of fandoms. "Whassup, homies?"

He was met with a lot of blank stares from the others.

"Er… That is to say, I uh… well, I was walkin' through the halls today, with my Notebook of +5 studies… or something," Sorren attempted to strike up a lively conversation. "And I was thinking, 'Dude, uh… Xbox totally blows and… uh… OOT was totally the best Metroid game, and, uh… Episode 3 sucks ass, and hey, the formal's tonight, right?' Well, 'formal' in Klingon is 'MAKTALUKA' so I was actually thinking 'MAKTALUKA is tonight!' But anyways, I was

thinkin', y'know, I don't have a date or nothin' so, I might like… spent the night at home playing

World of Warcrest or somethin', and then I was all, 'Hey, maybe I'll go to the formal!' So uh, hey

Sue, did you maybe wanna be the Leia to my Luke and we totally go together?"

Sue's friends could only stare in shock, trying to get past the slew of headache-inducing nerd killing inaccuracies until Sue finally caught on.

"W-wait a second, Sorren," Sue's eyes widened. "Did you just ask me to go to the formal with you?"

"Uh…" Sorren scanned the conversation. "Yeah, I did mention something like that."

There was a moment of stunned silence and Sue's eyes narrowed. "Who's paying you, and how much?"

"Huh? Oh, nobody's paying me," Sorren shook his head rapidly. "Honest!"

"There's no WAY a self-centered asshole jock like you would want to ask a geek like me to go to the most important formal dance of the year next to prom and homecoming!" Sue glared at him suspiciously. "There's gotta be some kind of catch—what's your game, Wanahakaruugi?" She stood up and poked him in the chest, a no-nonsense glare on her face.

"Football and lacrosse and field hockey and soccer and baseball and football," Sorren replied proudly.

Sue did not seem impressed. "No, you know what I mean! What's up? Are you gonna kidnap me and humiliate me and leave my body on the football field like some kind of bad CSI episode? Dump pig's blood on me? Do you owe somebody money? Or is this some kind of twisted bet from that obviously gay goth kid and if you don't make me the most popular girl in school in an extremely short span of time, he's gonna make out with you against your will?"

"Huh? No way!" Sorren burst out laughing at the last suggestion. "Dude, that's ridiculous! I just thought… y'know… that the whole clique situation we have going on at this school is… y'know, kinda sad. So I figured I'd make the first step and reach out my hand to promote unity among our peers, resulting in more cooperation, tolerance and higher school spirit, connecting us all in our hearts with fond memories of our harmonious high school days?" His voice rose into a hopeful squeak.

**~X~**

"Bullshit!" Vivi roared.

"Gosh, you guys are retarded!" Hayner rolled his eyes.

"BAKA DESU!" Pence screamed excitedly. "WASABI!"

"And also my mom rented a limo," Sorren shrugged.

"OH MY GOD A LIMO!" Sue's eyes lit up and she nearly tackled him. "OF COURSE I'LL GO TO THE FORMAL WITH YOU! YAY! I'M SO HAPPY!"

As Sue cried into Sorren's shoulder about feeling like a princess and having all her dreams come true, Sorren maneuvered her to turn around so he could shoot Raikou a thumbs-up over her shoulders.

Raikou sighed dreamily.

This all concluded with a horrified scream from out in the parking lot where unfortunate little

Larry Klein stumbled upon his father and Ms. Sophie in flagrante delicto in the front seat of Mr. Klein's pickup truck. Larry would later require nine years of psychological therapy, and would eventually suffer a massive nervous breakdown and rename himself Shirley, moving to a distant tropical island and selling overpriced Ray-Bans to tourists for the rest of his days.

Time to cut back to the characters we (and by we, I mean the author) actually care about, and also a few hours ahead. The author craves whiskey.

Team Gan Gan Galaxy had been gone from the prose for several pages, and for the sake of the plot, several hours. There are a number of things they could have been doing during this long stretch—and no, "each other" is not a viable suggestion. Shut up and go Google it if you're so desperate, horn dog. There'll be none of that here.

**~X~**

In fact, they had utilized what remained of Hobio's laboratory in apartment 304 to do a little impromptu experimentation on what resulted from the gory end of Hobio—for symbolic purposes a glowing purple substance that resembled the popular depiction of a soul, a misty blob of something. This was, as a matter of fact, Tobio's… you know.

Were this parody a video game, they would have momentarily seen a "you got an item" screen where the item was called "2x Tobio Stone".

Enjoy that imagery in your nightmares.

It was currently safely enclosed inside the Tupperware that Gingka had found earlier, carefully stuck in whatever inter dimensional backpack also holds the team's weapons when not in use. Tests had shown that it would not spoil and would not vanish away, and as long as they kept it enclosed and away from any freaky accidents it would not re-manifest itself into Hobio.

Our heroes could keep it safe until they were able to return it to the WBBA HQ and back into Tobio where it belonged.

For the time being, though, there was a more important mission—they must find and destroy Reggi before he escaped, summoned a large number of stronger Gutless, or worse, found a way to come through on his goal of Ukefying even more hapless victims.

Once things at room 304 had been properly cleaned up and sealed away, the signal in the back of the guidebook began to blink incessantly, leading our heroes back to…

"Oh hell," Gingka muttered. He was carrying the guidebook in one hand and Reiji's pathetic, mercifully unconscious body in the other. The first person who likens Reiji to a damsel in distress and writes an adorable yaoi fanfic to go along with this image will receive a brick to the face.

"Mmm… Winga, stick your tongue in my ear…" Reiji murmured stupidly. Gingka mercifully knocked him out cold.

"No. No. NO. Absolutely not!" Tsubasa snarled, shaking his head rapidly. "I refuse!"

"We must remain strong in the face of trial, team," Madoka didn't look exactly thrilled either as they stood on the football field again—they had been on their way back to Destiny Hooby Whatty High School, but were distracted by the crowds of headlights and the colorful banner now festooning the outside of the gymnasium.

"ANNUAL SPRING FLING FORMAL PROM HOP" it read.

"A high school dance. You will never find a more wretched hive of angst and triviality," Masamune lamented. "And yet, we're picking up the signal of Reiji's Seme from within. Our luck today is astounding."

"We must stop Reiji's Seme from wreaking havoc, Tsubasa," Gingka told him sternly. "If he has something planned—say, transforming all the male students of the school into Gutless, we could have a real problem on our hands and our… you knows."

"Let's make this an in-and-out affair, shall we?" Tsubasa suggested. "After all, now that we know

the Seme's weak point, we just need to destroy Reiji's Seme, then we can see about restoring

the Sirpant blader here back to his original state. And besides, it can't be that bad in there."

"I was wrong," Masamune corrected himself as they entered the gym, subject to the sight of strobe lights and squirming, grinding teenagers; the smell of perspiration, BO and body spray potpourri; and the sounds of some shrieking bird-woman squawking about humps and checking out her lady lumps, whatever the hell those are.

"Hurry up with that signal, Madoka!" Gingka was getting quite annoyed, as horny teenagers kept grinding into him.

"It's getting stronger, and it seems to be coming from somewhere beyond that mass of students,"

Madoka had to yell over the music, gesturing to the far end of the room. She set Reiji's body down in a chair for safe-keeping, and rolled up her sleeves. "We'd better start digging."

Our five heroes set themselves to pushing and plowing through the writhing mass of sweaty high

schoolers.

Somewhere within the mass, Sue and Sorren were actually having a fairly good time together.

Sue had endured an unnecessarily extreme makeover at the hands of Natasha earlier that evening, and was wearing probably too much makeup for a girl of her age—nevertheless, she did look quite pretty, and even Quarterback Captain of the Football Team Jock Mr. Popular Sorren had to admit… when she wasn't doing weird things like studying or finishing her homework or watching sci-fi marathons or wearing glasses, she was quite attractive and… dare he say it? He may have been falling for her!

Sue, on the other hand, was beginning to grow enamored of Sorren's ridiculously stupid comments, his slow wit, his inability to go without mentioning sports for ten minutes at a time, his perfectly white teeth and his adorable virginal naïveté. A slow song was rapidly approaching and she was highly considering letting Sorren dance with her during it—rather than the usual trick of giggling, commenting on how lame the song is, and standing awkwardly two feet apart staring at each other without touching until the song ended.

A short distance away, Natasha was getting a little frustrated with Raikou. He'd been behaving SO well so far… he'd worn a tux and a pink tie (that PERFECTLY matched her dress), he'd left his hair hanging in his face like it looked best, and he seemed dedicated to spending the entire evening with her…

Aside from the fact he was staring forlornly across the gym the entire time, whispering unsettling things like "Mm, you'd look so good in my shirt" and "I wish I could be your redheaded Princess of Heart".

"It's almost time for the royalty announcements," Natasha whispered to Raikou. "We'll see if Sorren owes us money!"

"Money?" Raikou mumbled. "I didn't bet him money."

"You didn't?" Natasha looked stunned. "Then… what did you bet him?"

"I said I'd kick his ass if he didn't," Raikou replied.

Many things happened all at once exactly as Raikou spoke—if just one little event had changed, maybe things wouldn't have gone as badly as they did but, well, they didn't, they did, and here we are.

As Raikou opened his mouth to speak, a small amount of saliva built up in the back of his mouth, causing his tongue to slip when he pronounced "kick". It created a hissing sound, which made the word come out more like "kiss".

Which is, of course, what Raikou was really thinking right then, but beside the point.

As Raikou opened his mouth to speak, the last notes of the last song faded out and the gym had fallen silent for only a second as the next CD cued itself up over on the DJ's turntable. This created a perfect theater for Raikou's comment, "I said I'd kick(ss) his ass if he didn't," to echo all across the gym, quite loudly.

Of course, Raikou was dating the most popular girl in school, so everybody knew who the "he" he was referring to was—his bet with Sorren was a fairly popular story and everybody seemed to know about it except for Sue.

As Raikou opened his mouth to speak, Sorren and Sue had been in the middle of a heartfelt discussion on how surprised they were at how well they got along. This led to a moment of them staring into one another's eyes, and in that silent moment, it occurred to both of them that it was time for a kiss.

Let us return to the proper course of events, right after Raikou's fateful comment echoed across the gym.

Natasha was an oblivious girl, but not so oblivious she couldn't hear and know about the rumors of her boyfriend being the biggest closet case in the school. As Raikou threatened to "kiss" Sorren for losing the bet, something cracked within her. Suddenly, all the rumors seemed true.

"Kiss him?" Natasha's eyes flew open. "You want to kiss Sorren?"

"What? No, of course I don't—" Raikou stumbled.

"YOU'RE GAY!" Natasha finally shrieked. "EVERYBODY'S RIGHT ABOUT YOU, RIKU! YOU'RE TOTALLY GAY!"

"No I'm NOT!" Raikou went pale and tried to defend himself, but unfortunately ruined his argument in mid-sentence by happening to glance back over at Sue and Sorren and seeing them about three inches from kissing.

In the silence of the room, he could hear Sorren mumbling, "This'll be my first."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Raikou screamed dramatically and hurled himself through the crowd of people, tackling Sorren only moments before he and Sue had their mutual first kiss and knocking the football player to the floor beneath him.

Sue could only stare in shock as Raikou stood up hurriedly, muttering, "I just didn't I'm not gay seriously don't everybody stare at me like that!"

"Raikou, what on earth are you doing?" Sue cried out.

"I'll tell you what!" Natasha appeared beside her like a bat out of hell. "Raikou's GAY!"

"… Duh," Sue and about half the student body muttered.

"Not ONLY is Raikou gay and not ONLY has he humiliated me on the most important night of my life except for homecoming and prom and maybe my wedding!" Natasha roared, "But he made a bet with Sorren that Sorren couldn't make you the most popular girl in school in one day! And if Sorren lost, RAIKOU WAS GOING TO KISS HIM!"

Sue's jaw dropped and she stared in horror down at Sorren. "Wh-what? Sorren, is this true?"

"I… I…" Sorren was still a little distracted, what with being taken out by a brawny goth kid only seconds earlier. "Well yeah, but…"

"YOU BASTARD!" Sue shrieked. "I knew there was a catch! You didn't like me at all, you just asked me to the formal on a dare! How could you do this to me? I was starting to trust you! I hate you, Sorren Wanahakaruugi!"

"I'll never forgive you for making a fool of me, Raikou!" Natasha burst into tears.

"I'm NOT GAY!" Raikou screamed.

"NO SUE!" Sorren sobbed. "It was all for the money, at first, but—but I changed my mind! I love you! And dare or no, I want you to be my girlfriend!"

"NOOOOOOOOO!" Raikou screamed again.

"Oh Sorren! Do you mean it?" Sue whispered.

"Yes Sue, I mean it!" Sorren nodded sincerely.

"I'M SORRY I DOUBTED YOU!" Sue whimpered and pulled Sorren to his feet, hugging him tightly as they kissed.

"And the King and Queen of this year's Spring Fling Formal Prom Hop are Sorren Wanahakaruugi

and Sue Tsukihimemiyakage!" a random senate member called over the microphone.

Olette was currently upstairs burning down the senate office.

"S-Sue!" Vivi had been conveniently nearby throughout this exchange, "What the heck is wrong with you? How could you let this jerk humiliate you and take advantage of you like this, and then forgive him seconds later?"

"THE REEARU FOOORKU BERUUUSU!" Pence howled unintelligibly. "HOONTOU NO!"

"Gosh, Sue!" Hayner snapped, "What happened to your brain?"

"Jeez, Sorren!" Natasha was distraught and ready to take her anger out on just about anybody.

"What happened to your nuts?"

"Ooh, sorry, I'll be needing those!" a very sinister voice rang out across the gym.

From behind the DJ booth in an explosion of fire appeared Reggi Wizucha, wielding his snakey chakrams with a large, disturbing lava lamp set on the table behind him. The students screamed in terror and all backed away from the scary man, except for Raikou who was distraught and on the rebound.

"HEYO KIDDOS! The name's Reggi Wizucha! R-E-G-G-I W-I-Z-U-C-H-A! GOT IT MEMORIZED?" Reggi howled with laughter, releasing a fire spell that closed all the students inside it and confined them to a small heap. "And I hate to be rainin' down on your happy little high school thingy here, but my boss, the Grand Master Fangirl requests the usage of all your… you knows!"

"But some of us are girls!" protested one girl in the front. "We don't have… you knows!"

"Don't worry, babe… I'll be dealin' with you lovely ladies in as well," Reggi winked seductively at her, "Cuz we of the Gutless don't discriminate our reign of terror by gender! Got it memorized?"

"Yeah, we got it memorized," the sheepish students repeated.

"On behalf of the Grand Master Fangirl and ALL of us at Orgy IX, I'd like to welcome you to our Gutless army!" Reggi held up the lava lamp and plugged the other end into a nearby power bar. The contents of the lamp began to hum and churn turbulently, emitting a bright purple glow all across the gym. Male students screamed in torture and clung pathetically to their friends and dates, complaining of a terrible pain in their… you know. Female students began to feel awfully bitchy and unnecessarily abusive. A few felt like they were about to die in a tragic accident that would leave their boyfriends no choice but to heal their mental anguish with lots of sex of the male-male variety. Some felt as though soon, they wouldn't exist at all.

Except for Raikou, who was oddly not affected by either affliction.

And just as the collective… you know of the student body began to condense as a mist up in midair, the flames on all sides of the gym were extinguished with a sudden burst of deep blue ice crystals.

"WHUTHUFUDGE?" Reggi snarled, backing away and narrowly avoiding being sealed within an ice crystal himself. "WHAT'S GOIN' ON?"

"As much as I'd love to see this insipid hellhole burned to the ground, if you're going to make up a high school AU, you might as well do it decently," a cool, vicious voice snapped from the darkness. Yu appeared from the shadows, wielding his shield of ice and firing abrupt rounds of icicles at the Seme menace and his equipment.

"YOU!" Reggi cried, leaping nimbly out of the way of the ice attacks rushing towards him.

"You dumbass! Don't you realize it's too late? I've become something new, something BETTER!

I've become something real! I CREATED this world!"

He lunged towards the Libra blader, flaming chakrams spinning wildly and only barely deflecting off his shield. "With my powers—with the powers of the Gutless, this domain is OURS! Got it memorized? This school, these students, this entire world, ALL of Fandom Fight Beyblade is under our control, the Orgy's control, the control of the Grand Master Fangirl! Don't you see? You could be a part of something so much more, so much bigger, if you'd ONLY cooperate!"

"I'd rather die!" Yu seemed to take extreme offense at this suggestion. "I'd rather be killed than lose my… you know and become a simpering wuss like the others, or a psychotic sex fiend like you!"

"That's too bad," Reggi sneered, knocking Yu back with a strong attack and turning to the hoards of half-Gutless students. "GUTLESS! Tear them limb from limb! Got it memorized?"

The halfway mindless students looked as though they were about to advance on Yu, but they were stopped suddenly by a fence of six eagles. A fierce wind tore through the gym, urging the suffering students back and away from the Seme and tearing down decorations into a great tumultuous whirlwind of shrapnel and debris, including the lava lamp, which shattered into a million glowing pieces.

"Your plots are recycled, your character archetypes are trite and unoriginal, and your dramatic attempts are unconvincing, weak and desperate at best," Tsubasa added, standing on the other side of the gym from Yu.

"Thanks for buttin' in! NOT!" Reggi had two chakrams, exactly enough to send them wildly flipping and flying at both Yu and Tsubasa, who concentrated on fending them off with their weapons. "I hate it when people show up an' ruin my fun!"

"Where's the fun in this?" Tsubasa sneered, and six eagles sunk into the floor, creating a temporary cage-of-sorts around the Seme.

The eagles suddenly flew off in all directions. The DJ booth rose off the ground as did the floorboards, riding a wave of Pegasi that jutted up from the floor like a mountain. "You have been evilly spawned from one of our comrades—you are no longer fit to live or exist in this or any other world," Gingka raised his hand and Reggi was lifted up on an enveloping quagmire of Pegasi wings, slowly sealing him within. "In short, your plan is a failure and your time is up."

"WHUTTHUFUDGE! That ain't fair!" Reggi squirmed against the rocks that were sealing his hands bound behind him and his feet to the ground, lifting him and the shards of the lava lamp high into the air.

"We don't exactly play fair, Seme," Masamune shrugged with a smirk.

"NOOO!" Reggi screamed and thrashed, fighting the ceaseless tide of Pegasi feathers that was slowly engulfing him, pulling his arms backwards and immobilizing him face-up. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! I'll make you scream and beg me for mercy! MERCY! Got it memorized? I'LL DOMINATE YOU, EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!"

"Oh, so sorry, 'Reggi'," Yu approached the Seme from behind, coating one of his hands in a blade of ice. "But I don't think you have the nuts for it."

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Raikou shrieked from the crowd of students. "BUT I LOVE HIM!"

"No you don't," Yu snapped, and the prose cut away in time to hear, but not witness, Reggi's final moments.

"NYAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH! JINGA! JINGA! WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOU, JINGA! AAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGHHH!"

Shwwwwwooooooo-POP!

Shhhhlup.

"Got it," Madoka held up the Tupperware triumphantly, three glowing purple 'some things' floating gently within.

Next thing the students of Destiny Sanctuary Peak High School Academy Middle School knew, some hapless DJ was struggling to get another CD on the turntable as they snapped out of whatever silent trance they'd been in.

"Wh… what happened?" Sorren muttered, rubbing his eyes. "My… OW… my groin hurts!"

"Mine too," Vivi murmured.

"Mine too," Hayner agreed.

"RETSUU GO GEKIGANGAR VOI!" Pence shouted.

"What were we doing?" Kairi asked.

"I… I don't remember. But I have this feeling," Natasha whispered. "Cliques are stupid. We should have fun and all hang out together as a big group of friends tonight."

"That's a great idea, Natasha!" Raikou agreed, copping a feel of Sorren's ass.

"It certainly is. Because, you know, no matter what clique or in group we belong to here in high school, after graduation it won't matter anymore," Sorren said sagely. "We'll all be out in the real school, after graduation it won't matter anymore," Sorren said sagely. "We'll all be out in the real world holding down shitty jobs for meager pay and a lame middle class status quo. So, we might as well make the best of things while we're still here in our stupid little fantasy mini-real world, here at Destiny Sanctuary Peak Academy Buttercup Daisy Brightening High School."

A soulful background melody played. It was probably "Graduation" by Vitamin C.

"Yeah, I bet you didn't know all the students at this school were professionally trained dancers!"

Olette cut in from nearby, smelling of gasoline and burnt matches.

"HEY!" Raikou said accusatorily. "Not Another Teen Movie!"

"Donde esta la biblioteca? La biblioteca esta allí! Donde esta Pedro? Pedro esta en la biblioteca!

Pedro esta allí!" Pence said wisely.

"Wow. Wicked awesome party," Hayner wheezed and eyed all the trashed floorboards and decorations. "Wanna see my sweet dance moves?"

They did. They all did.

**~X~**

Meanwhile, up on the G.S. Externalist, Gingka set the ship's course on its way to the next world while Tsubasa and Madoka decided to see about rescuing Reiji from his predicament or, if worst came to worst, putting him out of his misery.

They laid the unconscious Uke out on a convenient table, and Madoka clutched the Tupperware in hand and made an expression of deep concentration. "We'll have to be careful. If we're lucky the thing will take back to its rightful place without our help, but we must be ready for anything."

"Let it be known that should this ever happen to me, if you can't get my… you know back within twenty minutes, I want you to take me out," Tsubasa said, glaring with disgust at Reiji's new fashion choice. "Disgusting, what those Gutless will do in pursuit of a thrill."

"By the way, no one is to hear of this moment. It doesn't leave the ship," Madoka warned them.

"Don't worry, Madoka," the eagle blader assured her, "I doubt any of us could even muster the nerve to talk about such a thing."

"Good," the Beymechanic opened the Tupperware and held it towards Reiji's unconscious body. The room filled up with a purple light and a soft, wispy purple something rose from the crack in the container's lid.

As Gan Gan Galaxy watched in awe, it twisted and curled on itself through the air and immediately seemed to recognize where it was going. It immediately zipped towards Reiji and absorbed itself into him, and were it able to speak would have let out a joyous cry of "I'M HOME! I'M HOME! HOME AT LAST!"

The author apologizes for that mental image, actually.

Suddenly, Reiji winced in pain and flinched, clutching his sore groin as his eyes fluttered open.

"Agh! OW! What the hell? Gah… Gingka? Madoka? Tsubasa? What the hell…"

"I have to wonder if you really want to know, Number Eight," Gingka told him.

"Good to see you back to your old self, Reiji," Tsubasa smirked.

"Back to… whaddya mean?" the serpent blader sat up slowly and ran his fingers through his blood red hair, still looking quite out of it. "All I can remember's… Jinga was actin' all weird, then everybody else started actin' all weird, so I made a break for it… Then I got to Hollow Bastion and all these weird little Heartless-lookin' things…"

"As we thought," Madoka nodded with a triumphant smile, writing down Reiji's account in his notebook.

"And am I nuts, or was there a really pretty Tobio running around there for a little while?" Reiji rubbed his head, mildly horrified at the thought.

"To make a very long story short, the WBBA is under attack by an army of Gutless. They have stolen the… you know of most of the other members, kidnapped two of them and yourself, and they're setting off a plan to take over the universe," Gingka said evenly.

"Oh," Reiji muttered.

"Important question, Reiji," Tsubasa cut in, "When was the last time you saw Jinga? He's disappeared from the castle and we fear the Gutless may have kidnapped him."

Before the author puts down Reiji's reply, she will have you know that for this story, and for all future intents and purposes of hers, Reiji and Jinga are best friends. Friends. Without benefits. Buddies. Pals. Chums. Cronies. Comrades. Not lovers. No kissing. No sex. Nothing but friendship. Stop reading into it right now. It won't change. Ever.

Proceed.

"Jeez, I don't know," Reiji looked suddenly alarmed. "We were up in my room playin' on the PS2, and suddenly he starts… I don't know, but he was acting weird. I noticed the big-ass bite mark on his hand, and I figured I'd go tell Superior or somethin', see if he knew anything. But when I got out in the hallway…"

"The Gutless," Tsubasa murmured.

"Well, only like one or two," Reiji shrugged. "But I didn't know what they were, so I teleported my ass out of there. Went to Hollow Bastion, figuring maybe I could catch my breath there and then head back to see Superior but, uh… dumb idea, in retrospect. So you say they got Jinga?"

"Yes, but as we found you, we'll find him, and the Pisces blader as well," Gingka said optimistically.

"Reiji, I've got a favor to ask you," Tsubasa said. "I want you to go back to the WBBA HQ and keep an eye on things."

"What? I ain't going back in there! They'll get me again!" Reiji snapped indignantly.

But then, an alert beeping caught all six of them in attention from the control board on the ship.

Tsubasa was always there to reply. "Yes, Hikaru, we have some good news."

"Let me guess." The Aquario blader took a moment to think, then said plainly, "You caught one 'you know' so far."

"Wrong, Hikaru." Masamune piped up and smirked, "We caught 3 so far."

"Oh-kay. Well, who are they? I can already guess that Tobio must be one of them and- Is that Reiji in the background?" Peering over Madoka's shoulder from her screen, she could clearly see the deflated shape of the Serpent blader on the table.

"Yeah, he rudely interrupted a prom party that happened in the DSPHSAGS gym. By the time we arrived there, we caught him in the Tupperware." Gingka explained the one hell of a scene that occurred to them in their blading lives.

"Well, that's odd. For a seme like him to barge in and interrupt the King and Queen of the prom party." Hikaru now glanced back to announce it to Ryo, but it turned out that Hyoma was a better choice. "Three semes are not enough. Keep on capturing the rest of them and restore their normal selves, alright?"

"Yes, we got it Hikaru!" Gingka nodded in agreement.

"Good. Happy seme capturing. Don't let the Gutless get you down!" Hikaru winked then dropped the call.

"No, no. You ought to have gained immunity from the Gutless and their parasite," Tsubasa assured him. "Do me a favor. Find a camera and take some pictures, would you?"

"Pictures? Of what?" Reiji raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, trust me, you'll figure something out," Madoka smiled darkly.

"Do try not to laugh at them too hard?" Tsubasa sighed. "After all, you had your moments too."

"Stand near the DEM engine, Reiji, and we'll teleport you back to the WBBA HQ," Gingka prepared to smack the red button.

"Yeah, okay, but where are you guys going?" Reiji scratched his head.

"To the next world," Tsubasa said, his voice brash and determined. "We've no time to waste. We must continue onward bravely, no matter what trials we may face…"

The ship was engulfed in a white light, and the occupants vanished for their respective destinations.

"Look at it this way. Nothing could be worse than the high school AU," Tsubasa said.

"I was wrong," he said dismally about twenty seconds later as they landed in the next world.

**What could POSSIBLY be worse than a high school AU? Well, wouldn't you like to know. See you next chapter!**

**APOLOGIES AND OBSERVATIONS:**

**My Chemical Romance is really not that bad. They're worse. I'm sorry, Raikou… I'm so sorry.**

**Spot the Other Video Game References and Win a Cookie! (hint: UMBILICAL CORD!1!)**


	5. The Author Must've Spent

**School. Don't you dare distract me again. *cue angry face here.***

**Anyway, in this chapter (I believe) the crew will now be heading to Big Top to capture Team Exclusive Bar and Fast.**

**Enjoyz DA NEW CHAPPAY! XD**

Our universe is an odd place, full of many strange and mysterious things that can cause wonderment or confusion—and oftentimes pure, straight, chilling fear.

The idea of "fear" differs from person to person. Some fear the abstract—things such as death, the afterlife, and finding out the meaning of their existence is just to deliver a pizza to a distant world, be eaten by Heartless and then to cease existing soon afterwards (Rago, the Organization's

Number Nine from MFB version of KH, used to have this fear). Some fear the concrete—insects, snakes, the deep end of the swimming pool, high places. Others fear things that appear in their imaginations—flaming zombies wielding chainsaws—and some fear the very idea of things, such as a rumor of Britney Spears switching to an acting career and being cast in the lead role of a Janis Joplin biographical film.

But some fears are universal. Some fears are so intense, so terrible and so frightening, they can strike the cores of even beings who are incapable of feeling emotion to any extent beyond a logical standpoint.

And what Team Gan Gan Galaxy witnessed upon their arrival in the next world certainly fell under that category.

At first, it appeared just like any other ordinary suburban neighborhood, but only at first. Rows and rows of cute cookie-cutter ranch houses and the odd apartment building lined streets full of green trees, children rode their bikes in the street and elderly people watered and worked in their gardens. In the distance, a high school—but not one of Destiny Sanctuary blah blah blah caliber, as it appeared very ordinary—stood proudly with an oversized flag flapping in the wind, and a park was set off to the side of it. It could not have been a more unlikely place for an adventure to begin…

This contrasted the overwhelming stench of Destiny wafting through the air.

It also contrasted the teenage girl currently standing before our heroes. Her name was Sakura- Rose Sunblossom Orange Juice Annie-Marie McFate. She wore a shimmering sailor outfit ripped straight from the cels of a magical girl anime in all the colors of the rainbow and a long silver cape that went all the way down to the tips of her glowing gold stiletto-heeled boots. Her hair was the deepest raven and braided all the way down to her knees, and her eyes sparkled like amethyst orbs. The weapon in her hand was unmistakably a Keyblade, shining silver and gold and plastered with a rainbow of colorful sequins, diamonds, rubies and sapphires.

Sakura-Rose pointed the Keyblade in a straight line at our heroes, drawing it across the group in a threatening manner and smiling a pearly-white grin that spoke of overconfidence. "Halt, evildoers!

You'll not live to terrorize any more innocent people under my watch!"

"Sweet eternal mother of spinning tops," Gingka took a step back, his stomach roiling with nausea.

"Ha! See? Look how you tremble and shudder in fear at the very sight of my pure, righteous heart! I'm the chosen Keyblade bearer, you know!" Sakura-Rose laughed heartily and struck a pose suitable for an action figure. One of those super-detailed ones you can't actually pose or move at all.

Beads of sweat began to form on Tsubasa's brow and his cheeks were on their guard, backing away alongside Gingka and muttering, "That's not… it can't be…"

"They're not supposed to be real!" Masamune hissed, sticking close to his teammates.

"But it is. It's real—it's…" Gingka stammered.

"A Mary Sue," the five of them gasped in horror.

"HEY! I am SO not a Mary Sue!" Sakura-Rose halted her threatening charge and triumphantly righteous speech, placing her hands on her hips in protest. "I have FLAWS! Like my step daddy beats me and he's SOOO MEAN! And I only got second place in my school spelling bee, and my class rank is only 3rd out of 247!"

"What do we do—what do we do?" Tsubasa understood something was very wrong the moment he began to panic. "She's got a Keyblade—she's going to destroy us!"

"N-now stay calm! Everybody just stay calm!" Madoka, too, was starting to freak out.

Masamune had panicked so badly he backed completely away from the situation—and it was only once he was outside a small radius of the girl he began to think clearly again. He glanced back up at his two teammates with sudden realization. "Guys, back away from her!"

"BUT SHE'S GOING TO KILL US!" Tsubasa shrieked in horror.

"Here, just—" Surely risking his life, Gingka inched as close to his team as he dared before grabbing them by the hoods and yanking them back out of the way.

Once there had been some distance gained between them and Sakura-Rose, Tsubasa and Madoka seemed to return to their senses and blinked, still backing away from the girl ever approaching them with her Keyblade drawn.

"What's happened to us?" Tsubasa demanded of Madoka, who took a moment to poke around in the index of the guidebook. "Why do we turn so pathetic if we go even near that girl?"

"It's her species, Tsubasa," Madoka pointed to the tattoo on Sakura-Rose's midriff, one that eerily matched the ones they had seen marked on the Preppy Gutless in the previous world. "She's a Mary Sue Gutless. Approaching her will subject us to the illogical reality of her existence—she is apparently smarter, stronger and better than all three of us put together—in her own delusional little world. But she possesses the power to make others in the vicinity think so too."

"She doesn't look like the other Gutless," Masamune noted. "It's almost as though she was once human."

"Not human," Madoka shook her head, gritting his teeth in disgust. "She was once an ordinary denizen of this world… the Gutless infected her and transformed her into that creature."

"The denizens of this world aren't human?" Yu asked incredulously.

"No… they're not real at all. Unfortunately we may be seeing a great deal of other creatures like this one," Madoka tilted her head at the girl. "It seems we've landed in…

_BIG TOP_

"Big Top?" Gingka attempted.

"What? Is that like where Beyblades turn huge in this world?" Masamune started to laugh.

"It doesn't matter—this world is ten times more dangerous than the last," Madoka sneered. "And what's worse, I'm picking up the presence of a Blader."

"One of ours?" Yu asked quickly.

"It seems so," Madoka's eyes narrowed. "I hate to think what might have happened to them…"

"Let's not. We've got bigger things to worry about at the moment," Tsubasa gestured back at Sakura-Rose, who was still making her relentless charge.

"You evil Beyblade guys will learn better than to mess with MY neighborhood!" Sakura-Rose giggled, and sprinted towards them with her Keyblade drawn.

"Right… we'll just have to kill the creature while remaining a good distance away from her,"

Masamune said, attempting to remain calm and urging the others to join him in backing away.

"Now, is this species stronger than the Gutless we've seen before, defensively?" Gingka asked Tsubasa.

"Doesn't look like it."

"Then allow me," Gingka pulled out his Pegasus Keyblade and urged the others away from him.

"Ah! Then a one-on-one fight it shall be? Very well! TEE HEE!" Sakura-Rose stopped in her tracks and waved her Keyblade menacingly at the Pegasus blader, her violet-hued orbs gazing at him with a steely, heroic glare that spoke of righteousness and goodliness and a vast knowledge of Orlando Bloom's acting roles. "You'll never defeat me, you hideous beast, because I represent all that is pure and good and light in the world, and YOU are an evil creature with no heart and I have a heart and it holds nothing but love for ALL LIVING THINGS! And you'll never be able to scare me, either! My will is as strong as stone!"

"Really?" Masamune asked, rather lamely, and with the slightest movement of his hand, Sakura-Rose was crushed to death beneath two tons of irony and a gigantic summoned slab of rock.

"Well done, Masamune. I rather enjoyed the timing," Tsubasa complimented him with a good-natured slap on the shoulder.

"I thought you would," He stretched his shoulder and leaned on his Keyblade Striker casually.

"Is that it? Is it… dead?" Yu now took a few uneasy steps towards the slab, tilting his head to better see what had become of the Gutless.

As the Gutless gave her final squeals of agony squished against the pavement, there was an explosion of what appeared to be rainbow-colored glitter. It poofed out from beneath the rock and scattered across the street, causing all three of our heroes to leap back for caution's sake.

Things once again appeared to be quiet in the ordinary suburb.

Gan Gan Galaxy approached what remained of the Gutless and very carefully, Tsubasa picked up a pinch of the glittery substance, examining it with a discerning eye. "I wonder what this is?" he asked. "Perhaps the source of the Mary Sue's mind-altering powers?"

"Fascinating," Madoka jotted down her observations. "Gentlemen, do you realize what this means?"

"What?"

"It means, if we take this substance to a properly safe location and perform some tests on it, we might be able to create an antidote to the Mary Sue's effects! I'd feel much safer tracking down the source of this Blader signal if that were the case,"

Masamune sneered, triumphant in her idea.

"A splendid idea, Madoka," Gingka kneeled down and began scraping the glitter into a convenient little bottle he'd found in his pocket. "Let's investigate that small shopping center up ahead, shall we? Perhaps there is a hardware store or somewhere we could get the proper supplies."

"Let's not waste any time then," Tsubasa eyed their surroundings with an unpleasant grimace on his face. "Another one of those… things could pop up at anytime."

**~X~**

OMGS. I wish I could tell you the story of Kain Bakayourou but the author got too lazy to add it in for she was too busy writing up on what's happening with Gan Gan Galaxy.

Unfazed with the seme tracker beeping repeatedly, Madoka was unaware that there was a seme just next to the candy shop which happened to be a…..

Yes, a music hall. Where every weird ass concert was held by weird alien beings that rock and rolled out of the Canon Universe, one being that lived there was NOT in fond of that type of music. He was very much into classical music, the smooth tone of a violin that entered his ears were just too calm and soothing. Maybe he has the personality of flowers too like Wales, hmm? But let's leave the flowers away for now and talk about the violin virtuoso. Right now, he placed a rose in between the strings of his trusty violin and started playing it with a sobbing feeling. The tune sounded sad and depressing. He was not. For all he cared about on what he was doing, was LOVE towards that personality. Oh, wow, you guys don't know who he is by now? Okay, for this was the team leader of Team Exclusive Bar and captain, Julia Ronzerk. The Percy Jackson blader always ignored his teammates to…. whatever they were doing and mainly practiced and performed short shows for the other beings of the FFB world, Big Top.

After a few strums of the violin, he finally gave up by calmly setting down the instrument and taking off his expensive looking gloves for that cold air feel to his hands.

Sighing, he glanced at the rose stuck between the strings and volunteered to carefully remove it and twirl it around in sadness. "Oh how I wonder what Whales, Selphie and Clown are up to."

Giving out a soft chuckle, he slipped the rose in a healthy vase filled with the right amount of water and faced a special screen that brought up other happenings in the world of Big Top.

There in the first screen, it showed of the everyday argument between Whales and Selphie dressed up in wetsuits and slapping each other with a dried plump fish that the killer whale behind them was impatient to be needing it right now.

"No! I don't care what you say, Selphie! I'm the official whale trainer here for the Big Top Aquarium. Go to a school or something and teach Career Day. I'm busy teaching Shampoo some awesome new tricks!" At the moment of hearing that, Shampoo decided to flick his tail in the direction of Selphie, causing her to be drenched with water (or even worse, smelly whale pee maybe.)

Gritting her teeth in frustration, she softly pushed him aside, causing the Fetus blader to tumble into the water, and stomped angrily towards the aquarium locker room. "Fine, have it your way, Whales! I quit being whale trainer!" Yes, there was no point of arguing this time since Selphie now was halfway to the locker room when Whales decided to ride Shampoo, catching up with her in the process.

"So? You'd rather be a math teacher than a whale trainer, huh?"

Getting even more cross at the point of her brother being annoying now, she proceeded to hurl another spare fish at him, the scaly tail slapping his cheek. That caused him to lose his balance from atop of the whale and fall into the water all while placing a hand on his cheek in relieving pain. (Julia almost snickered at that.)

"Bye Whales!" Selphie slammed the door to the locker room shut.

_Kruuu- klith- eyuuueiii!_ Shampoo whined as Whales re surfaced at the top, his head just bobbing up and down as his vision stared at the locker room door, swaying up and down.

"I know." Whales muttered as he swam to the shore, Shampoo following him right behind, releasing vaporized water through his blowhole.

Turning around while kneeling down, Whales patted his snout and happily fed him another fish as the Fetus blader stood up and went to seek Selphie.

Back at the Music Hall, Julia faintly smiled as he pressed another button on the control board, bringing up another screen where it showed of the Band Kappa-cane blader, Clown. Klaus's seme was now riding a rather short unicycle all while squeezing a blub shaped horn that created those obnoxious clown sounds that will haunt every toddler's nightmare. The sight of it was rather not too appropriate for his big size but I actually don't know why the author has assigned this personality to him.

Anyway, Clown was too busy in the middle of performing a silly show for kids, which half of them almost cried to death of the sight of a silly ass clown trying to cheer up these sweet little beings that were now going on as a prepetitious failure.

"Aw c'mon kids! Don't be sad. Here, do you wanna see a silly trick on using a balloon?" The kappa-cane blader proceeded to hold up a long yellow shaped balloon and in seconds, he turned it into an elephant failure.

Still the kids were not satisfied towards Clown's action of silly magic tricks and continued crying.

Julia almost rolled his eyes at the sight of Clown's stupidness and switched the screens off. (Both of them.)

Instantly, as he was about to get up to return practicing violin, he wasn't aware of another screen flickering to life as it brought up another figure.

" _JULIA RONZERK. I HEARBY HAVE TO SAY THAT TEAM EXCLUSIVE BAR HAS TO BE READY TO FACE THOSE GAN GAN GALAXY TEAM WHATEVER THEY ARE. ALERT THE REST OF YOUR TEAMMATES NOW. AND FAST WILL BE JOINING YOU."_

Julia almost stopped in his tracks and whirled around, facing Grand Master Fangirl with a confused look towards the mention of 'Fast' whoever he was.

"Yes, master. I'll get to it."

" _NO. GET TO IT NOW OR YOUR ORIGINAL BLADER SELVES WILL GO BYE BYE. SCREW YOUR SAD VIOLIN PLAYING AND ALERT THEM NOW!"_

The Percy Jackson blader almost sighed in frustration as he rolled his eyes towards his master's ever fuming demand, "As you wish."

" _GOOD. AS I EXPECT YOU TO BE. NOW GO."_

Not necessarily being needed to be repeated twice, Julia ran forth out of the Music hall and towards the Big Top Aquarium.

**~X~**

Oh, wow. Am I now skipping on Gan Gan Galaxy now? -_-

**~X~**

Anyway, back with Team Exclusive Bar, strange happenings were going on in the Big Top Aquarium locker room where Whales, Selphie, and an unknown Seme that was not allowed to jump into this scene, but whatever.

"My lord, our latest experiments ought to be done by now," Selphie said softly as she opened the door to her master's chamber. "Perhaps we ought to- AAGH!"

"Selphie, can't you see I'm busy?" her master hissed furiously, throwing his sparkling diamond tennis bracelet to the ground. "Do you remember the rule we discussed when I created you? About the scrunchie on the door?"

"… 'If there's a scrunchie on the door, x-x-Whalesey-donoCrImSoNfLoWeR-x-x is busy playing dress up,'" Selphie recited, no easy task thanks to the spastic formatting of his name. She winced and turned slightly away to spare herself the sight of her master in a long, luxurious red evening gown and fully covered with radiant Maybelline products that he certainly wasn't born with.

"That's RIGHT, honey!" Wales's Seme snapped, glaring at his icky female assistant and brushing bright orange flowing man-hair out of his face to show her just how pissy she'd made him. "Look, the stress has reduced my hair to a frizzy mess! AGH! I can never properly menace the world like this!"

"I-I'm sure the Grand Master Fangirl will forgive you if your hair is only slightly off, Superior," Selphie covered her eyes and felt vaguely queasy. "In any case, Superior, the line of applicants now wraps around the mansion four times. Also, Fastx has been properly… recruited."

"Oh HAS he!" Whales-dono squealed excitedly. "Excellent! Forget the other applicants for now, I want to see how my new little honey turned out!" he clapped his hands joyously and gestured grandly towards the door. "Come, Selphie! TO THE EXPERIMENT CHAMBER!"

It was difficult taking the disturbing Whales-dono seriously as he skipped down the hallway of the creepy abandoned mansion, taking his time to scope out the asses of every mutant plant Gutless-turned pre-nubile skinny servant boy and stopping every so often to lavish attention on the huge pictures of himself he'd hung all over, but at last they reached the darkened basement chamber where they'd left Fastx several hours earlier.

"HONEEEYYYYYYY! x-x-Whalesey- donoCrImSoNfLoWeR-x-x's here to check up on

yoooooooou!" Whales-dono cried out, throwing open the door of the transformation pod. Smoke poured out from within and a dark silhouette was barely visible through all the wires and unpleasant-looking needles and plugs. Suddenly two glowing red eyes opened, and Fastx was heard to give a low moan.

"The machine is suitable for both uses, it seems," Selphie smiled evilly.

"Yes, ooh, I love the looks of him already! And I thought it really outdid itself pulling that little number on you, honey," Whales-dono cackled, unfastening the straps around Fastx. "Honey, are you awake?"

"I am awake and ready to do your bidding, Master," Fastx's voice no longer sounded prepubescent— no, this tone was better described as pre-apocalyptic.

"Glad to hear it. Come on out, honey, I can't wait to take your for a test drive," Whales-dono cooed.

Faust's seme, Fastx stepped out of the frightening pod machine and for the first time, Whales-dono and Selphie got a full glimpse of his new outfit. His auburn barkish sienna hair was now auburn barkish sienna-silver, and extended far down below his knees. His outfit was entirely comprised of leather and death midnight raven black feathers, matching those on his new set of wings—wing, rather, as one wing was angel-style and covered in the same raven feathers, and the other was horned and demonic. His blood gore sanguine red eyes glinted in the dim light of the laboratory and his clawed hands tightened around the samurai sword at his belt. Most prominent however was the Gutless tattoo on his lower abdomen.

"Fastx, you look FANTASTIC!" Whales-dono squealed. "My plan is working out better than I ever thought it would! MMPH! Can you imagine an entire army of these things, Selphie?"

"We've made a definite improvement over Sakura-Rose, that's for certain," Selphie laughed wickedly. "A few more proper recruitments like this and we'll have an entire army of Mary Sue Gutless! This world will fall into our grasp and the Grand Master Fangirl will be most pleased!"

"Perhaps," Whales-dono giggled, curling a long strand of Fastx's hair around his finger. "They'll even be able to take care of those nuisances Hobio warned us about before his unfortunate demise."

"The Bladers?" Selphie rolled her eyes. "Oh honestly—look at the guy. He'll make mincemeat out of them… and if he doesn't, I will."

"That's right… all the Mary Sues in the world couldn't hope to match you in terms of ability, honey," Whales-dono sneered cruelly. "But luckily, I don't think we'll have to worry about things getting that far… will we, Fastx?"

"I have changed my name," Fastx announced. "It is now…"

A shrill beeping noise from one of the computer monitors distracted the three of them from hearing

Fastx's new moniker. Whales-dono rushed over to see what the problem was, and made a horrified face. "Oh POOPY!"

"What is it, Master?" Fastx glowered.

"I'm picking up the signals of three Bladers on the grounds of my beautiful evil Aquarium!" Whales-dono hissed, stamping his feet in a tantrum. "It's those horrible ugly Beyblading yutzes! They've come here to destroy our plan!"

"I will never allow it!" Selphie shrieked, tightening her fist in fury. "Quickly, Master! Order the applicants waiting outside to dispose of them!"

"It's too late for that," Whales-dono wrinkled his nose and twisted his finger in his hair nervously.

"They've already begun attacking…"

Selphie and Fastx crowded over Whales-dono's shoulders and watched the monitor themselves, hoping to get a good view of the situation. "But this can't be right, Master…" Fastx grumbled.

"The applicants are all getting their asses handed to them."

"Ooh—I didn't think they were supposed to bend that way," Selphie winced.

"No… no I don't think they are," Whales-dono looked vexed, clenching his fists. "Agh! And they're throwing their unconscious bodies into my beautiful rosebushes! THOSE WERE RAISED BY HAND, YOU BASTARDS!"

"What shall we do, Master?" Fastx growled. "We will not stand for those Bladers to make such fools of us!"

"They've kicked the asses of every single one of them and thrown them over the hedges, and now that giant brute is erecting a stone wall around the premises to keep them from coming back in!"

Selphie pointed out. "Master, send out Fastx and I! We will take care of them while you think of some way to keep the mansion and our precious machine secure—pathetic blading wannabes are a dime a dozen, but we can't afford to lose the machine!"

"Right you are, sister," Whales-dono clapped his hands. "Very well! We'll do JUST THAT! Selphie, Fastx! Go outside and give those jerks the what-for!"

"Yes, Master," they both nodded and vanished into dark portals.

"Those poopy-heads have another thing coming if they think they'll defeat me so easily!" Whales-dono slammed a fist into the computer monitor, before pausing, glancing at his hand, and utterly freaking out. "OHMIGAWD! I BROKE A NAIL!"

**~X~**

"Ah. Two more to add to the stack?" Tsubasa asked, amusement apparent in his voice as Selphie and Fastx appeared before them.

"You people never learn," Gingka smiled with amusement. "Do humor us. Who are you supposed to be?"

"The one on the left's obviously a Mary Sue Gutless," Tsubasa pointed to Fastx, smiling patronizingly. "Go on. Give us your fancy speech, boy."

"Boy?" Fastx sneered. "You dare to call me boy! I am the son of seraph and demon and also human! I am the cold assassin, I appear from the shadows of darkness and strike out of nowhere— my victims do not even see me coming before my blade claims them in the name of the dark! My power is unimaginable by any human imagination! There is no one stronger, no one faster, no one possibly more badass than I am! I am the ultimate! I am the strongest! I am the fastest! I am the most badass! I am the ultimate—"

His speech went on for quite a while. For space's sake, we shall present the abbreviated version.

"—I am the ultimate opponent! Prepare to bow before me, you pathetic whelps, for I am the terror that flaps in the night! I... am… JEFFIROTH!" Fastx turned-Jeffiroth screamed dramatically.

"JEFFIROTH!" echoed the trained opera choir in the background.

"Isn't that precious, guys?" Masamune smiled cruelly. "How he thinks we ought to be afraid of him. It's too bad we've discovered an immunity to his kind, so his empty threats are nothing more than just that."

"Ah, and look at this. The one on the left's obviously an HD academy member," Tsubasa said, mocking how impressed he would have been had he no dignity whatsoever. "How cute. Tell me, dear, what's your name?"

"My name is Selphie, sir," Selphie snapped evilly, pulling an electrified mage's staff with all sorts of points and sharp edges on it out of nowhere. "And you're making a huge mistake underestimating me. I am a member of Team Exclusive Bar!"

"Are you?" Gingka rolled his eyes. "Well, let's see now… XIII—thirteen members, right? Let's

count them up, shall we? There's Ryuga and Tobio…"

"Aw, c'mon! You bring up the MFB version of KH again!" Madoka sighed in frustration.

"Then the three of us," Tsubasa added. "Ryutaro, Kumasuke and Aguma… Then Zeo, Doji and

Reiji…"

"And we mustn't forget Rago, Tetsuya, Wales, Sophie and Jinga. Hm. That's thirteen,"

Masamune challenged her. "What number would you be?"

"Oh hell. She's Number Twelve," Madoka said suddenly, staring in horror at the computer in the back of the world guidebook.

"What do you mean, she's number twelve?" Yu snapped.

"I mean, the Blader signal we were following before?" Madoka said sternly, and showed Tsubasa the blinking signal on the monitor. "It belongs to her. She's Number Twelve."

"That's not possible," Gingka's voice rose ever-so-slightly with alarm. "Sophie is Number Twelve."

"She was," Masamune's eyes narrowed. "That thing there… whatever it is, it used to be Sophie. She's transformed into this new being… and she is Number Twelve."

Selphie cackled wickedly, spinning the staff around in her hands and striking a seductive pose.

"That's right… it's ever so wonderful to see you again, my comrades!"

There was a long, awkward pause on both sides of the battle.

"Well shit," Tsubasa said succinctly. His eagles seemed to agree.

**(Word out to my WBBA homies. Peace out, West-Midwestish-East Coast for life, y'all.)**


	6. Anything But Ordinary

**So, So, So, I am back with another chappie.**

**I belive this is where they'll capture Whales and Selphie and the rest of Team Exclusive Bar.**

**Anyhow! Enjoy! :D**

The unofficial official motto of the WBBA is "Let it Rip", much like the Scouts, was "Be Prepared". A lot of strange things happened in the places between darkness and light, and Ryo instructed every one of his followers to be ready for absolutely anything.

As such, it was difficult to startle a WBBA member for any reason. All thirteen of them carried themselves as though they expected a chainsaw-wielding serial killer to leap out from behind every corner, giant meteors to crash down upon them from every direction, and the world itself to implode in a giant fireball at any second. Their reflexes were insanely fast, they were quick on the uptake, and could salvage their way out of sticky situations faster than MacGuyver in a Wal-Mart. You could spring any number of insane obstacles in their paths, only to be met with a shrug, an "Oh well", and then the severe beating of your ass.

This explains the rather unusually calm reactions Team Gan Gan Galaxy exhibited upon finding out that the missing Number Twelve of their Organization, Sophie, had just turned up in a horrifying backwater world in Fandom Fight Beyblade, except she wasn't exactly herself and seemed to have been turned into some kind of obnoxious original character with big poofy hair and a nastier disposition than before. If you can fathom such a thing.

"So let me get this straight," Masamune said under his breath to his two compatriots. "That's

Sophie."

"But it's not," Gingka shook his head. "In this world, Sophie has been replaced by one of the godforsaken locals."

"So it's not Sophie," Masamune corrected himself.

"No, um… as far as this world is concerned, Sophie never existed. Rather… she never existed, sort to speak, but here she never didn't exist. Er…" Madoka stumbled for a proper way to explain her theory.

"That woman is taking Sophie's place," Tsubasa cut in.

"So it is Sophie?" Yu raised an eyebrow.

"It was Sophie. At some point. I think," Tsubasa hated to admit it, but this was the strangest thing he'd ever had to deal with—and that included the time Wales was cleaning out his dead herb garden and accidentally dumped the runoff into the castle's water supply, causing half the Organization to zone into psychedelic hallucinations for a week ("Tetsuya in the Sky with Diamonds"). "I don't know. Should we just ask?"

"We probably ought to, rather than kill her right out only to learn that it is Sophie," Gingka sighed heavily.

"If you boys are done over there, I've got some ass-kicking for you!" Selphie yelled shrilly.

"Pardon me, Madam," Tsubasa spoke up. "Before we proceed into the savagery, I was wondering if we might discuss your origins, in a friendly manner. Just one Blader to another."

"Do you think I'm hot?" Selphie giggled insanely and struck what she must have thought was a seductive pose.

"I don't see how that's relevant," Masamune replied lamely.

"What the hell are you?" Yu was in much less of a mood for Selphie's creepy mind games.

"You idiots, I've already told you!" Selphie huffed, holding her mage's staff menacingly. "I'm Selphie! I'm the representative of Team Exclusive Bar!"

"Sophie is Number Twelve, you pathetic wannabe," Gingka snarled.

"Hah! Maybe she was," Selphie grinned wickedly, holding up her black gloved hands in a dramatic fashion and staring at them. "But that hateful woman doesn't exist anymore. My brilliant master captured her and erased her from the face of existence!"

"Non-existence," Tsubasa corrected.

"Oh. Right. NON-existence!" Selphie cackled. "When your castle came under attack by my master's Gutless brethren, she was immune to the parasite, having no… you know! She escaped in a gummi ship and tried to cross over the barrier of Fandom Fight Beyblade to stop us, but my charming and wonderful master captured her and used his beautiful machine on her!"

"A machine? Of what sort?" Madoka had flipped open her notebook to write all the exposition down.

"It's a magnificent machine that transforms people into badass, awesome and obnoxiously flawless creatures. x-x-Whales-dono CrImSoNfLoWeR-x-x has been employing it for some time attempting to create the perfect Gutless and as you can see, he's getting closer and closer," Selphie sneered and motioned to Jeffiroth, who was standing off to the side striking a maniacal pose and spouting off more dramatic monologues. His choir stood off in the bushes to the left, taking a water break.

"So Wales's Seme is behind those horrific Mary Sue Gutless," Gingka's eyes narrowed and he seemed to be bracing himself for the impending fight. "I suppose you're one of his creations too? The next step up?"

"Oh please," Selphie cackled, gesturing at her one-winged… wait, no, two-one-winged companion. "Maybe you don't understand. I'm not a third-rate joke of a character like this loser."

"Jeffiroth is not a loser!" Jeffiroth interjected furiously.

"Jeffiroth!" his choir echoed.

"Right, right- whatever," Selphie waved him off. "I'm not an original character. In this world? I am canon, baby. That bitch Sophie and I are not the same person—she has been blinked out of existence and my beloved master put me in her place!"

"But why?" Tsubasa asked incredulously. "You people don't bother replacing the other members of our Organization you don't like—you just maim their personalities beyond recognition or ignore them completely to fit your needs. Why go to all that trouble replacing her when you could just find some other way to bend her to your will?"

"Tsubasa, it's Sophie we're talking about," Madoka reminded him in a weary, weary voice that spoke of many, many failed attempts to bend Sophie to her will. And not like that either.

"… Mmm, good point."

"Nevertheless," Masamune still had his fierce gaze locked on the imposter Blader as he summoned Striker up out of the ground. "Sophie is our comrade-in-arms and we will not stand for what you have done to her. In the name of the real WBBA—prepare to die."

"I think not," Selphie cackled and twirled her mage staff around her, stirring up a shower of lightning and a rumble of thunder beneath her feet. "I have come too close to achieving my dream to let you fools stop me now!"

"What dream?" Yu asked, summoning up his shield.

"Why, the dream I have held since the moment I was first born into this world as a Blader!"

Selphie sighed, posing dramatically and staring at the sky again. She clasped her hands together over what would have been her heart, and looking closely one might have noticed sparkles emanating from her body.

"Do tell us. I'm morbidly curious," Tsubasa encouraged her, calling down three of his eagles.

Selphie brushed flowing strands of cornsilk periwinkle blue hair out of her face, battered her grape purple eyes, pursed cherry-red lips and lifted a milk white hand to her licorice black leather coat.

"I will finally get to be with him," she sighed, a veritable produce aisle of affectionate daydreaming.

"I hate to say it, but Wales isn't interested in you unless you're a flower or under sixteen," Yu interrupted snidely.

"Yu, that is no way to discuss one of our colleagues," Tsubasa said, glaring at him with disapproval.

"Ew! No, not Wales!" Selphie looked appalled at the very thought. "I don't sleep with anything girlier than me!"

"Nobody girlier than her? That narrows it down," Tsubasa laughed suddenly, as he and the other two simultaneously took a huge step back away from the imposter.

"And not you three!" Selphie groaned in disgust.

There was a cough from the other side of the courtyard. "Oh… Jeffiroth is flattered, Number

Twelve, but Jeffiroth is dedicated to exerting his non-specific revenge on a non-specific number of innocent humans," Jeffiroth cut in. "And Jeffiroth does not want to become the victim of a large, crazed group of internet nerds who like to draw him pregnant and female. He's going to stay niiiiice and single and very, very asexual."

"Jeffiroth!" sang the choir.

"Why are you speaking in the third person all of a sudden?" Gingka stared in bemused wonderment at the Gutless.

The frustrated Selphie screamed in rage and clenched her fists. "Noooo, you idiots! Reiji! I'm talking about REIJI!"

There was a brief pause before Tsubasa laughed. "Oh dear."

"What is it?" Yu was still trying to figure out the mystery of Jeffiroth's syntax.

"Her name," Tsubasa had come to be very good at anagrams in all his time as a member of the Organization. "Take out an x. It spells 'Reiji Slut'."

"'Reiji Lust', thank you very much," Selphie corrected them haughtily. "But yes! That's right.

Now that I am a member of Organization XIII, I will finally have a chance to win the love of my precious red-headed emerald-orbed snakey angel of black-coated hotness… my Flurry of Dancing Snakes… my Number Eight, my Reiji!"

"A noble pursuit if ever there was one," Jeffiroth commented with a nod of approval.

"So let me get this straight," Tsubasa cleared his throat after a thoughtful moment of silence. "You have destroyed a member of Organization XIII to allow yourself into this world. You are transforming innocent locals into pale, idiotic and annoying shades of their former selves. You are 'betraying' your 'fellow' Organization members by assisting the group trying to sabotage them and bring about their downfall. And you're doing it all because you're in love with Number Eight."

Xuxastell sighed dreamily, batting her eyelashes. "Whales-dono promised! He said we'll fall in love and get married and have beautiful little Blader babies! If I prove myself strong enough, there's no way Reiji will continue to ignore me and fail to acknowledge my existence!"

"Non-existence," corrected Gingka.

"Oh, yes. Non-existence," she recovered. "In any case! You fools don't understand my course of action! I may be betraying the Organization, but it's only a matter of time until I finally win my place in Reiji's—"

Tsubasa had been oddly silent for the last few moments, but it appeared he would not remain so for long. There was sweat beading on his brow, his eyes were as narrow as they could possibly get, his fists were clenched and he was gritting his teeth as though holding back a violent explosion of curses and angry words. He interrupted Selphie with a small grunt, only a warning of the fury that was to come.

"Tsubasa," Yu turned to him suddenly, recognizing the look on his face. "Calm down."

"I am calm," Tsubasa's lip twitched with seething, furious hatred.

"It's not worth getting worked up over, Tsubasa," Madoka added. "She's a silly fool and she's been depressingly misinformed. Don't let it bother you."

"Don't let it bother me?" Tsubasa hissed, turning to glare at his companions. "'Don't let it bother me'? Have you taken a moment to think—a moment to even vaguely consider exactly what it is this imbecile is prattling on about?"

"Tsubasa," Yu said again, tone rising. "Don't lose your temper."

"Madame," the eagle blader snapped suddenly at Selphie, pointing at her. "Look at me. Look at me.

Look me in the eyes, this instant."

"What?" the female Fetus blader crossed her arms and complied. "You got a bone to pick with me?"

"Look me in the eyes. Are you looking? Do we have eye contact? Can you see the expression on my face?" Tsubasa lowered his Eagle and gestured to his eyes. "You can? Good. Now, let's see… where to begin- oh yes…"

Selphie's eyes bugged out of her head as Tsubasa exploded into a vicious tirade, the tirade of a

Beyblader whose entire life's and unlife's work was being disregarded in the name of creepy wish fulfillment.

"WE. DON'T. HAVE. HEARTS! We do not have hearts! There is but one rule in the Nobody codebook regarding the definition of a Nobody, and that rule is—NOBODIES. DO NOT. HAVE. HEARTS! You are not capable of falling in love with Reiji, nor is he capable of falling in love with you, because falling in love is an emotion, and emotions are born in the heart, and as I have underlined numerous times—WE DO NOT HAVE HEARTS!"

"Tsubasa!" Madoka immediately got his attention, "This is not KH! We're normal humans!"

"Yeah? But this the MFB version of those Lacking Spines! The original story was KH so we have to go according towards that."

Madoka almost wanted to face palm on what Tsubasa had just reasoned.

"But he makes me feel like I h-" Selphie began to stammer, eyes wide and voice tiny.

"DON'T YOU GIVE ME THAT SHIT!" Tsubasa screeched. "The operative term there is 'like!' Feel 'like' you have a heart—but you DON'T. Because you are a NOBODY. And NOBODIES. DO NOT. HAVE. HEARTS! Any emotions you may think you are detecting are in an intellectual sense only— I am currently not furious out of my mind with your utter disregard for any sort of logic besides your own desperate little delusions—I understand that had I a heart, and were I therefore capable of feeling emotions, I would be completely enraged at your stupidity!

Therefore, I behave as though I am enraged and about to choke the life out of you, in order to mask the fact that I am a Nobody. You do not seem to understand this fact, making your pathetic rantings and ravings and moronic behaviors absolutely inexcusable. And furthermore!"

"I hate it when he gets like this," Gingka sighed from nearby.

"It can't be worse than the time somebody suggested that Reno was Reiji's Other," Masamune reminded him.

"Oh yes… he was beside himself. It took a week to get Rago down off the ceiling," Yu recalled with a sigh.

"Furthermore!" Tsubasa wasn't done yet, so 'furious' that he was beginning to glow with an purple aura, "Nobodies are not born by traditional means—they are created, and therefore it is not possible for a Nobody to 'have babies', you thickheaded dolt-"

It is usually at this point in the story that some wonderfully smug reader decides to open up his or her email client and begin a long, profanity-laced letter to the author with a long bulleted list of every single little piece of the science of Nobodies that she got wrong and the reader's own theories on the game, including helpful citations to points in the game script that discussed such things. There are also usually lines like "if you would bother to pay attention at the part where…" and "I have played the game nine times and I can tell you that…"

So it is at this point the author would like to ask that the readers accept a few liberties she may have taken, and should they feel like popping off a pretentious email to prove her wrong, she suggests that they take a deep breath and remind themselves that they are about to get up in arms and pissy about blading in a video game.

The narrative break conveniently skipped over Tsubasa's very own profanity-laced tirade on the blading of Nobodies and returns us to the part where Selphie, shamed and enraged at the severe thrashing her dreams had just received, took a few steps back away from our heroes and glared at them. "Enough!" she screamed. "No more talk—it's time for the three of you to suffer the same fate as your comrades! We will take your… you know and your Semes will be helpless to disobey the Grand Master Fangirl's command!"

"I assure you, Madame, watching your attempt will be most entertaining," Masamune said smugly.

"Or perhaps…" Selphie smiled, "Perhaps instead I will capture you and present you to my master Whales-dono as a trio of new experiments… You too could come into this world replaced by new existences, ones that would not be so adamantly against our plans!"

"We're going to kill you now," Tsubasa was still red-faced and quite in the mood for some ass kicking.

"Your attempt will be most entertaining," Selphie mocked Masamune's voice and extended a graceful hand to point at them. "Jeffiroth! Deal with these five!"

"Yes, Number Twelve!" Faust's seme cackled maniacally and drew out a seven-foot-long samurai katana, black feathers and sparkles flying through the air around him and eyes glowing the same red shade of sanguine, and also blood.

"Jeffiroth!" sang the choir.

"I'm heading back inside the locker room to check on our master!" Selphie huffed and raised a portal of darkness to step into.

"After all that drama, you're not even going to fight us yourself?" Gingka asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't dirty my hands on the likes of you," Selphie sneered and stepped through the portal.

**~X~**

Once back inside the Aquarium locker room, "Number Twelve" let out a horrified girlish screech and burst into tears.

Lightning and thunder filled the halls and exploded around her as Selphie ran towards the master chamber with her face buried in her hands, plowing over hoards of inattentive guards on the way. Her not-exactly-a-heart ached with the pain of Tsubasa's cruel words and she was creating a rainstorm of tears as she headed for a word with Whales-dono.

She skidded to a halt outside the master chamber and ignoring the polka dot girdle tied up to the doorknob, banged on the door with a fist and sobbed, "Master! Master Whales-dono, I-I must speak with you! Have you secured the machine?" She turned the doorknob and stepped inside.

"A-are you in, Mast- AAGH!"

"Rub those back legs… Oh yes, you're a dirty little honeybee… Ah! Selphie, can't you see I'm busy?" Whales-dono hissed furiously, throwing his pink remote control to the ground. "Do you remember the rule we discussed when I created you? About the girdle on the door?"

"But Superior, I thought it was a scrunchie!" Selphie gaped in horror and covered her eyes, now crying for a very different reason.

"When there's a scrunchie on the door, x-x-Whales-donoCr ImSoNfLoWeR-x-x is busy playing dress up! But when there's a girdle on the door, x-x-Whales-donoCrIm SoNfLoWeR-x-x is busy watching his special videos!" Whales-dono huffed, glaring at her to show his icky female assistant just how pissy she'd made him.

"I'm sorry sir! It won't happen again!" Selphie sobbed and turned away from the big screen TV, showing a video of what appeared to be a very close up view of a bee pollinating a flower.

"Yes, well, make sure that it doesn't!" Whales-dono zipped up his frilly pink coat and shut off the TV. "Have you finished dealing with those fools outside yet?"

"N-not yet sir, I have Jeffiroth taking care of them as we speak," Selphie whimpered, wiping her eyes.

"I thought I told you to do it!" Whales-dono groaned. "Seriously, Selphie, can't you ever follow orders? What am I going to do with you?"

"W-well sir, I did! I mean… I was going to fight them, b-but one of them…" she blubbered, bursting into tears all over again. "H-he said that Reiji could never love me because we don't have hearts!"

Whales-dono cocked his head slightly. "Oh, he did? Huh."

"W-well, is it true?" she sobbed. "I-is it true that my dream will never be realized? That Reiji and I can never be together? That we can't have a bunch of cute little Nobody babies and name them Tomx and Bobx and Jenniferx and Charlenex?"

"Weeeeeell," Whales-dono twisted a finger around in his orange hair and grinned sheepishly. "Maaaaybe."

"Then you lied to me!" Selphie gasped in melodramatic horror. "You said if I helped you

you'd… you'd make it so Reiji and I could be together!"

"I'm working on it, honey," Whales-dono groaned and tossed his head, waving her off with a flick of the wrist. "You've already seen what I can do when given the proper materials. I'm sure with a little work I can make it possible… sorta."

"'Sorta'?" Selphie looked shocked.

"You don't have a heaaart, honey," Whales-dono reminded her cheerfully. "It kinda comes with the territory. BU-U-U-UT! No whining about it now! We've got to deal with those hot, sexy little

Blading miscreants before they ruin our entire operation… hmm… Do you think that big brawny one would look cute in a pair of these?" he asked, holding up a catalog of men's lingerie.

"I like these little red ones, they'd really bring out the color of his hair…"

"You…"

"As for that hot little braidy-boy, mm… he's just got the prettiest blue eyes, doesn't he? I'm thinking green for him… it'd really help if we did something with all that lovely hair too…"

"You don't even care!"

Whales-dono turned from his catalog to see Selphie on the verge of an emotional breakdown in the doorway. "Hm?"

"I'll never be able to make my dream come true! A-and you promised you'd help me!" Selphie sobbed. "And you lied to me! And you don't even care! How could you? How could you do this to MEEEEEHEEHEEHEEEEEE?"

In an explosion of falsetto, trilling sobs, she turned on her heels and sped down the hall in the opposite direction, screeching and wailing and setting off miniature lightning storms and generally creating quite a tantrum.

"Gawd. What a crybaby," Whales-dono said distastefully, turning back to his catalog. Not that he could really blame her, on second thought, because that Reiji had such a tight, cute little ass.

No matter. Once Jeffiroth brought him the five defeated Bladers, then the fun could really begin.

The question was? Did Tsubasa look better in blue or in leopard-print?

**~X~**

Back out in the garden, Jeffiroth was engaged in a fierce battle with Gan Gan Galaxy and doing quite well at holding his own, despite the unbelievable disadvantage he was in.

Unfortunately, a seven-foot katana, while cool-looking and certainly intimidating, is just not all that practical for a battle. Jeffiroth was able to attack with it, mostly by spinning around in a circle with his arms stretched out and hoping it would nick the team enough to make them give up their unceasing barrage of wind, ice, earth and stabbity-type attacks. His two-one wings flapped in the air behind him, his hair rustled majestically in the breeze and his choir was doing an admirable job of keeping up with the battle and changing the pace of the song accordingly.

"You five ought to be trembling at my power! Trembling, do you hear?" Jeffiroth yelled viciously, taking a break from his onslaught. "Greater men than the likes of you have trembled at my power—you will tremble, or you will die!"

Gingka hefted Pegasus over his shoulder to take a breather, stepping out of Jeffiroth's immense reach. "Unfortunately, _Faust_ , we have taken precautions to avoid trembling at your pathetic 'power'."

"There are none who can avoid trembling at my power! None! No man alive! Not one! No man alive can avoid trembling at my power!" Jeffiroth cried redundantly, holding his sword straight up above him in a dramatic fashion. "I am the black wind that echoes in the—"

"There he goes again," Tsubasa sighed heavily and recalled his eagles.

Masamune groaned. "I would be much more mildly impressed with his fighting abilities if he would stop taking breaks to spew out poetry."

"—the spider that hangs down at your neck! They created me for one purpose, the sole purpose of —"

"Perhaps you could introduce another huge Star blast attack, Gingkie?" Yu suggested, letting his shield hang down at his side. "It worked so well last time."

"—blood, blood, bloody bodies as far as the eye could see! Every inch of the battlefield covered in corpses as they had known the fury of Jeffiroth and it littered their fields with bodies—"

"I don't know," Gingka sighed. "It takes a lot of energy to summon such a thing so quickly… and this one seems to be much stronger than the monstrosity we ran into earlier."

"—the gaping maw of the black beast of death, clutching its claws into your liver and ripping and holding and licking at the blood, feeding the hatred—"

Tsubasa took a moment of pause to consider their options, keeping his eyes on the beautiful flowing veil of silver silk that was Jeffiroth's hair. "Hm."

"Are you listening to me?" Jeffiroth demanded, stopping right in the middle of his favorite sonnet about death and blood and sanguine, too, only to see that his intended victims appeared to be discussing something calmly amongst themselves. "You DARE to downplay the fury of Jeffiroth's mighty poetry! You dare to turn your heads away from him as he reaches his most glorious majesty? You dare to-"

"Get on with it!" our five heroes yelled simultaneously.

And much to their half-relief, half-chagrin, Jeffiroth seemed like he really was finally getting on with it. A dark glow surrounded him, his eyes intensified their blood red and also sanguine color, and he began to float a few feet off the ground.

"Very well then! Jeffiroth is leveling into his second form!" Jeffiroth screamed.

The choir would have sung out their usual echo, but they were busy moving around in the bushes to make room for a 100-piece symphonic orchestra and Nobuo Uematsu, skydiving out of a nearby helicopter to conduct the One-Two-Winged Angel Jeffiroth Second Level Angel's Teardrop Blood and Also Sanguine Sanctimony Suite Mark Three.

Jeffiroth, in the meantime, cloaked his entire body in waves of black magic that ebbed and flowed over every inch of him, throwing off an unearthly black glow that would slowly transform him into Jeffiroth's Second Form. It was a mesmerizing and complicated process that would take six months alone for the programmers to animate in full FMV mode.

"Oh hell. Not a second form. This could be very difficult," Gingka said in a voice that suggested he didn't really believe so.

"Yes… I am inclined to believe he's all talk," Tsubasa said.

"Indeed," Madoka had settled down on a convenient park bench to watch the four-hour animation sequence to depict Jeffiroth's leveling up. "I have a rather good idea as to how to get rid of this nuisance for good."

"Do tell," Masamune settled down next to him and Gingka joined them a moment later, having fetched five refreshing fruit smoothies from a nearby concession stand for the long, long wait.

**~X~**

Dear Diary,

You took my heart

Deceived me right from the start

You showed me dreams

I wish they'd turn into real

You broke a promise and made me realize

It was all just a lie…

Selphie lifted the pen from the paper and regarded her poem with a discerning eye, quite proud of the misery she had evoked in it until she realized that it was actually the chorus of the song "Angels" by Within Temptation, currently playing on loop on her iPod.

"Damn!" she stood up and threw her diary against the wall in fury, followed shortly by her iPod before she realized what she was doing.

It only took a few seconds of staring at the broken audio components on the floor for Selphie to decide on her course of action.

She and Reiji could never truly be. She'd been deceived by a very, very flaming shell of a Nobody, and he'd manipulated her into doing terrible things and betraying her own Organization.

She was incapable of writing her own poetry and her $400 iPod lay shattered in pieces on the ground.

Selphie could not go on like this.

She rose wearily and stumbled dramatically down the hallway, eyes blankly staring straight ahead and her blonde curls falling wispy into her face. Tears left stains on her cheeks as she made her way to the grand staircase and headed down, down, down into the basement room where her cursed master, that fruity bastard Whales-dono had brought her into existence…

And it wasn't even her own existence!

It wasn't even EXISTENCE!

What kind of cruel world was it where a girl as beautiful and powerful as Selphie could be taken advantage of by a wicked… whatever he was such as Whales-dono? In what kind of cruel world could she be denied the one thing she wanted, oh, so desperately, more than anything else in the world?

Thoughts of Reiji danced in her head as Selphie threw open the door to the basement room in which rested the transformation pod. She remembered miserably the first time she'd woken up here… the pod door opening, Whales-dono standing above her and welcoming her into his new world, her absolute disbelief that a guy could be that swishy and not actually be a woman…

It must have been ten minutes she sat there staring at the pod and utterly feeling sorry for herself.

Her attention was only broken when she glanced at the security monitor off to the right, where

Jeffiroth could be seen in the throes of his twenty-minute leveling up animation.

One of the cameras barely included the silhouettes of the five team members from a dragon shaped country that was located in another universe . Selphie sighed wistfully, drowning in self-pity and loathing after her heartless betrayal. Heartless.

Oh dear god, the ANGST! It was too much!

"I must only upgrade," Selphie muttered to herself, lunging towards the pod and punching in new coordinates on the control panel. "I must upgrade… I-I will become the first Nobody with a heart! Yes! I will give myself a heart, a heart that cannot be broken like this un-heart…"

She took a moment to ponder the logic there. Then she shook it off and went back to her work.

"I'll show them… I can have a heart… I will fall in love! I will fall in love!" Xuxastell reached for the big red lever that Whales-dono had told her never, ever, ever to touch. It was certainly the lever that would install a heart into her next incarnation. She would not be born an ordinary Nobody again!

The door to the pod slid open and Selphie carefully backed in, strapping her arms and legs down accordingly and leaning her head back to take a deep breath.

"In your FACE, Whales-dono!" she screamed. "I will break free of your lies! You're so self satisfied I don't need-"

Well, damn. That was "I Want To Break Free" by Queen.

"I will learn to write my own poetry!" Selphie vowed triumphantly as the door to the pod slid closed and sealed shut.

**~X~**

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the aquarium, Whales-dono was about to return calmly to his special movie time when he received a rather angry message via satellite TV link from somebody on a far-off world who obviously scared him very, very much.

_"I KNEW I SHOULDN'T HAVE LEFT THIS OPERATION UP TO YOU, YOU ORANGE-HAIRED PUTZ! THANKS TO YOU, OUR PROJECT MARY SUE IS BACKED UP UNTIL WE CAN REPLACE THE HOARDS OF APPLICANTS THAT THOSE FIVE JERKS LEVELED!"_

"I-I'm sorry, Miss Grand Master Fangirl!" Whales-dono sobbed, twisting his hair around his fingers nervously. "It's true there have been a few setbacks but please, give me another chance!"

_"THE QUESTION IS WHETHER I FEEL YOU REALLY DESERVE ANOTHER CHANCE, WHALES-DONO! I'VE WASTED FAR TOO MUCH OF MY TIMEA ND MY_

_RESOURCES TRYING TO COVER UP YOUR NUMEROUS MISTAKES!"_

"Aww, honey, you don't meant that! Of course I deserve another chance!" Whales-dono looked scandalized. "Look at what I made! Look at Jeffiroth! He's a great example of what Project Mary Sue could bring to our ranks! Please give me another try?"

_"RIDDLE ME THIS, THEN: YOU'RE BARRICADED UP IN YOUR SUSPICIOUS OLD AQUARIUM AND OUTSIDE, ABOUT TO TEAR THROUGH YOUR PRECIOUS JEFFIROTH, IS A TRIO OF UGLY-ASS WBBA MEMBERS DEAD SET ON RUINING MY PLANS. WHAT DO YOU DO? PLEASE, TELL ME. WHAT DO YOU DO?"_

"Well, I was thinking we could implement Plan X," Whales-dono spoke up shyly.

A chord of dramatic music blasted out of nowhere. It was actually Jeffiroth's orchestra outside warming up, but pretend we didn't know that.

"PLAN X?"the Grand Master Fangirl gasped.

Another chord.

"Yeeeeaah… I know it's risky an' all but, ooh, can you just imagine how awesome it'd work if it

did work?" Marley-dono giggled, fluttering his eyelashes in joy at the very thought. "Rows an'

rows of 'em, all shiny an' beautiful…"

_"VERY WELL," the Grand Master Fangirl sighed. "I'LL IMPLEMENT PLAN X FOR YOU. BUT YOU LISTEN TO ME WELL, WHALES-DONO. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. I BROUGHT YOUR BEAUTIFUL GUTLESS ASS INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN TAKE IT RIGHT BACK OUT, ARE WE CLEAR?"_

"Crystal, honey, crystal," Whales-dono clapped his hands together excitedly.

**~X~**

Imagine the most evil, unscrupulous, sadistic, vicious and cruel villain from any book, movie, video game or TV show you'd like. Go ahead. Picture him or her very clearly in your head. Add wings. Lots of wings. Three sets of wings—an angel's, a demon's, and a fairy's. Add one more wing that slipped in there by mistake, a shiny rainbow-colored feathery one that might be found on more exotic species of parrots.

Add leather. Lots of leather. Black leather. Yards and yards of it, tight and constricting, wrapping every inch of skin that isn't otherwise covered by chains and spikes. Add hair. Lots of hair. Yards and yards of it, long and silky, all the way down to the floor and wrapped around the ankles three or four times, so long it strangles poor innocent woodland creatures trying to scurry by it on their way home. We are talking some Badass Locks.

Add sparkles. And an unearthly evil glowing aura of darkness. Add a little rain cloud overhead that spews down a constant shower of blood and tears.

Add a 100-piece orchestra, a full choir, a pyrotechnics display and Nobuo Uematsu conducting.

You now have a vague inkling of Jeffiroth's second form. Jeffiroth Squared. Jeffiroth Redux. **Jeffiroth Two: Electric Boogaloo.**

He was so bad ass his font was even bolded. "And now you shall learn, and you shall fear, and you shall learn to fear the wrath… of **Jeffiroth!** " he cackled maniacally.

"Jeffiroth!" the choir with orchestral accompaniment sang.

Tsubasa sipped the last of his strawberry-banana coconut dream smoothie and tossed the cup into a nearby trash bin, standing up and stretching. "All right gentlemen, time to get down to business." His eagles appeared in his hands and floating around him as they had before.

"Just like we discussed," Gingka mumbled under his breath, recalling Pegasus.

"Deep concentration," Yu stepped back a few yards away from the others and began to focus his energy into one hand.

"Are you fools finally ready to face me down?" Jeffiroth laughed, drawing his seven-foot sword once again, "We have battled before, but that was only warm-ups! You cannot comprehend my strength, and the strength you would have to have to defeat me! I will send all three of you back into the darkness of oblivion where you belong!"

"We'll see," Tsubasa glanced at Gingka. "Let's attempt Maneuver 35, shall we?"

"Let's do it!," Gingka slammed his Pegasus down into the ground and the entire courtyard began to rumble from the force. The rumbling continued until the earth beneath them seemed to be boiling and churning, ripping through the grass and giving rise to a furious layer of winged Pegasi's and their razor sharp feathers.

Tsubasa lifted one of his lances to the sky and the wind rumbled and churned in a great cyclone, round and round, drawing leaves from the nearby trees into its roaring grip and soon lifting the sand and rocks as well.

Yu kneeled down and placed his hands against the ground.

The vortex soon became a sandstorm, spinning wildly out of control and lifting high up towards the sky, a mighty testament to the abilities of Team Gan Gan Galaxy.

"Pitiful," Jeffiroth laughed. "You expect me to be held back by something so foolish as a sandstorm? I will cleave your pathetic sandstorm in HALF and you will learn to fear Jeffiroth!"

"Jeffiroth!" the choir with orchestral accompaniment sang.

Jeffiroth flapped all seven wings and lifted himself high up into the air, almost as high as the sandstorm reached, and began to focus his energy. He lifted his sword up behind him and prepared a mighty lunge, waiting until his choir got to the most dramatic part of the song to do so.

"Get ready," Masamune mumbled down on the ground. Tsubasa nodded, still busily keeping the cyclone at its most turbulent.

And faster than you can saw "Kamehameha!" or "Ma-nah ma-nah!" or even "Da, da, da!" Jeffiroth did a triple twister backflip back handspring, circled in the air and came soaring down like a hawk, all the way down to the ground and effortlessly slicing straight through the sandstorm. Chunks of rock and earth and a gust of wind flew out in all directions as the storm came crashing down all over the courtyard in a dramatic whoosh.

Jeffiroth struck a pose in midair, cackling maniacally as his stormcloud rained blood all around and his choir kicked it into overdrive—it was time for the techno remix. "You stupid foolish fools!

You foolishly thought you could fool Jeffiroth, you fools? So much for your precious Maneuver 35! I will now tear you asunder!"

He spun around to take a mighty chop out of our five heroes with his giant Katana sword, but found, for some reason, his head could not spin as gracefully and threateningly as before. He jerked his head as hard as he could to the side and quickly found out why when there came the sound of a huge "CLNK!", followed by a thud.

All nine or so feet of Jeffiroth's luxurious Badass Locks of silver hair lay frozen in a great chunk of ice on the ground beneath him. In the ten or so seconds of posing and threats since he landed from his mighty demonstration against Tsubasa and Gingka's sandstorm, Yu had made his move and promptly froze the Gutless' hair into a long, Badass Block of ice. The unfortunate thing about Badass Locks is that as badass as they are, they are not immune to the weaknesses of regular hair, and that includes the weakness that is proneness for snapping when frozen into a solid block of ice and subjected to a firm jerking of the head.

Jeffiroth stared in abject horror at his Badass Locks upon the ground, then up at the five some of Bladers who were responsible.

"Oh… my… god… my… HAIR!" Jeffiroth screamed, a shrill, horrible sound and fell immediately to the ground on his knees, clutching the broken strands in his hands and shrieking, "NO! NO! IT CAN'T BE! Not… say it… say it ain't so… it can't be this is… this is a bad dream, it must be! A terrible, terrible, horrible dream!"

"Jeffiroth!" the choir sang.

"NO! NO! SHUT UP, YOU IDIOTS, CAN'T YOU SEE THIS IS AN EMERGENCY?"

Jeffiroth turned to his choir and shrieked in rage. "MY HAIR! IT'S RUINED!"

"Good shot, Yu," Tsubasa congratulated him, catching his breath after the strain of holding the

cyclone for so long.

"Thanks, Tsubasa," Yu adjusted Libra and looked very proud of himself.

"I didn't really think he'd get so worked up about his hair," Masamune said as they watched a sobbing Jeffiroth trying as hard as he could to reattach the nine-foot mass back to his head. "It's almost a little… sad."

"Terribly," Madoka rolled her eyes.

"LOOK AT ME! I'M HIDEOUS! LOOK!" Jeffiroth howled, standing up and clawing at the back of his head. "I AM NO SILENT WIND OF DOOM IN THIS! I AM NOTHING TO BE FEARED OR EVEN REMOTELY NERVOUS OF… with this… short… hair…"

"Oh no. We're not frightened of you at all," Masamune enunciated. "Long hair, oh, yes, perhaps, but that terrible crew-cut you have now?"

"I must end my shame," Jeffiroth said numbly, turning his blade on himself to commit seppuku.

Unfortunately, a seven-foot long katana, while badass and certainly intimidating, is just not all that practical for seppuku. What followed was a ten minute display of Jeffiroth trying in vain to impale himself on a sword that was taller than he was, in full view of his choir and Nobuo Uematsu.

Gan Gan Galaxy looked on from nearby, terribly amused. It appeared Jeffiroth would be busy for a long, long time.

"Well, after that anti-climactic display, my vote is that we head inside to deal with Wales's Seme," Gingka suggested.

**~X~**

To make a long story short, in no time at all the Keybearer army and Plan X had been laid to waste, and Sophie reunited with her brethren in the middle of the courtyard, taking the opportunity to fix her hair.

"Hello team," she said in the voice of a woman who has not just murdered several hundred annoying teenagers. "How's crimes?"

"Significantly more violent all of a sudden," Tsubasa replied without missing a beat.

"What happened?" Yu gaped in shock. "How did you restore yourself? Selphie had taken your place by some means I don't even understand!"

"Oh, you mean that pod thing?" Sophie shrugged. "I'm not sure. All I know is I woke up and suddenly here I am, back where I belong. Tell me you didn't actually think she had really replaced me."

"Of course not, Number Twelve," Masamune assured her. "We would never think of replacing you."

"Good," Sophie smiled sweetly and suddenly her expression darkened. "Oh yeah—them Gutless things! I take it you three figured out what the hell's going on?"

"We certainly have, and we are in the process of repairing things as they should be," Tsubasa told her. "Hence our presence here. But we understand you took some measures of your own before

your untimely capture?"

"Damn right I did," Sophie snapped. "Damned if I care about most of the others, but I sure as hell ain't working with a bunch of sobbing pansies, I can tell you that much!"

"How nice of you," Yu said icily.

"Wales's Seme is inside. We must destroy him and regain his… you know in order to replace it back within the real Wales's body," Gingka explained.

"Or at least, whatever… you know Wales even had," Masamune glanced off to the side, twiddling his thumbs.

"Oh yes," Sophie smiled a positively evil smile, lacing her fingers together excitedly. "I've got a bone to pick with him."

**~X~**

Whales-dono was in his basement laboratory, pacing back and forth and trying, oh, trying to figure out some way out of this scrape. Selphie had disappeared. Jeffiroth was outside trying to impale himself. Plan X had failed miserably. The Grand Master Fangirl was not returning his calls. And the choir and orchestra were demanding 7 more per hour than originally agreed upon.

He fingered his limp, stressed-out, frizzy hair sadly and lamented the death of a fine, fine crop of man locks.

He also lamented the fact that the man who was the owner of those fine, fine man locks was also on the verge of death, if he couldn't come up with a good idea, real fast, of how to deal with the five intruders.

Stupid Selphie! Where was she when he needed her? All he ever had to do with that dunce was point and say that Reiji would be very proud of her if she did such and such or had this or that done by whatever time that afternoon. There was just no kind of help quite like the gullible brain washed and hired kind.

"Wales! Oh, rather- Whales-dono!"

A long chill ran down Whales-dono's spine as he heard the basement door slam open and swift footsteps down the stairs. It was nothing compared to the chill, however, when he turned around to find Sophie facing him down as the five intruders watched from far, far away. The fit girly cute one was holding a glowing Tupperware dish for some reason Whales-dono did not really want to contemplate.

Sophie smiled sweetly at him and tightened her gloves. "It's been a while, hasn't it? A couple days at least, since we last spoke!"

Whales-dono backed as far as he could against his lab equipment and picked up a small spray bottle labeled "GIRL REPELLANT", coating himself with a few spritzes. "Wh-why no! It must have been sooner than that, Ms. Sophie! The time… it seems…" he made a face and became very, very pale. "Way, way too short, honey."

"Oh, my thoughts exactly," there was something terribly dangerous lurking in Sophie's voice as she stepped towards him. With nowhere else to go Whales-dono hopped up on the table behind him, looking right and left for some opportunity to escape.

"Sister, let's talk this out all nice 'n gentle, mmkay?" Whales-dono smiled sweetly and very, very hopefully.

"Mm… no, I don't think so," Sophie replied equally sweetly, kunai forming between each of her fingers.

"Oh come ON!" Whales-dono cried out, glancing behind Sophie to the five teens at the other side of the room. "You sadistic bastards would leave me to a fate like this?"

"Can't say you don't particularly deserve it," Gingka said with a shrug.

"Meanie-pants," Whales-dono babbled incoherently as Sophie made her slow approach. "You! All five of you! Are MEANIE-PANTS! And homophobes!"

All six of them sighed heavily.

"We've been over that," Tsubasa touched his forehead as though he was getting a major headache.

"Sophie, if you would?"

"I'd be happy to," she snickered, tightening her fists.

"Oh please not in the face," Whales-dono sobbed.

"Don't worry!" Sophie assured him.

Several hours later, our heroes were back aboard the G.S. Externalist and once again drifting aimlessly through space on their way through Fandom Fight Beyblade. The gang was taking thier time to relax and calmly passed down all of the news to an ever attentive Hikaru without Sophie actually getting to know of their heroic plans before entering the next sanity-testing world. Sophie had hopped back aboard the gummi ship she stole and was on her way back to the WBBA HQ as they spoke, with orders to keep an eye on things and assist Reiji in any picture taking that needed to happen. They were certain she would be zealous and up to the task.

It was time for the heavy-handed moralistic section of the story.

**~X~**

On the bridge, Gingka sat with the Tupperware, watching the six you knows drifting aimlessly about within, occasionally bumping into each other and each emitting a soft and almost entrancing glow. "That world was less horrifying than I expected it to be," he admitted.

"Yeah. It is not so much horrifying as it is annoying," Yu cut in, "Nine times out of ten they come looking for the invocations of the people they know and love—it is frustrating to be constantly met with boring, trite and unoriginal invocations of somebody's friends or even themselves. All the worse if said invocations are Mary Sues."

"In the end, Big Top is simply a world of wish fulfillment. There is nothing terribly wrong with wish fulfillment, after all," Tsubasa agreed, sitting in a nearby chair with his feet propped up on an instrument panel. "What many do not realize is that when they post their own wish fulfillment publicly, it may not receive the warm welcome they are hoping as it is a very personal sort of thing. To go on to whining and bitching about it only make the genre as a whole more unbearable."

"They may create whatever they like, of course," Masamune added on. "But they need to be prepared to face the facts and understand that what tickles their fancy and excites them may not apply to the thousands of others that their worlds affect—unlike the common factors of the real invocations of characters that draw them into Fandom Fight Beyblade in the first place."

"Well-said," Madoka nodded.

"Indeed," Tsubasa agreed.

"Mmm, eagle boy," Gexegee called from the direction of the ship's bedroom. "Come back to bed!

We're not out of whipped cream yet!"

There was a long moment of silence as the five bladers regarded each other.

"Who let her on here?" Tsubasa sighed immensely, placing a hand to his forehead.

"I believe she may have written herself in," Gingka shrugged.

"I vote we deploy her from the airlock," Yu said suddenly.

"No, no. I ought to deal with her myself," Tsubasa stood up and stretched, making his way through the door. "I'll be in my bunk."

Once he had gone, Masamune let out a disgusted huff and set the gummi ship on autopilot.

"God I hate fangirls," he snapped.

The G.S. Externalist drifted along through the cosmos, very quickly jettisoning a screaming body from the back airlock but never ceasing in its triumphant journey to the next world.

**Wow. I ought to write stories like this more often.**

**Hope you kidlings enjoyed the chapter and laughed at least once or twice. I do love it when you drop me a line, positive or negative, so review copiously and maybe I'll send you a special edition of the chapter where you might or might not get to**

**boff Tsubasa but actually get thrown out an airlock.**

**Or maybe not…?**


	7. Rainy Day Woman Number 12 and 35

**Oh gods, sorry for the late hiatus schedule. :P**

**But anyway…..**

**Woot! Imma lovin this story!**

**Serously!? 4 Reviews!? I NEED TO BE GETTING MORE THAN THAT! XD**

**C'mons peoplez! I want this fic to become famous!**

**The original TLS story had 1,829 Reviews!**

**Please let me reach that 1,000+ Review limit then let us celebrates with virtual chocolate cake! :D**

**Ah, oh hell! Let's get on with the fic now, shall we?**

Somewhere across the universe, very far away from where the G.S. Exiternalist drifted lazily through space, somewhere all the way past chapter nine, there was a shadowy figure perched at the loft window on the very top floor of a tall, dark skyscraper.

He stared down at the dark buildings below, something wicked and sadistic glinting in the corners of his dark eyes. The room around him was dark save for the soft flickering of several black lights, illuminating the dark monitor of a screen across the room. The screen hadn't been dark until just a few seconds ago, when the black-patterned desktop and dark icons vanished beneath the black veil of a sleeping computer.

The man stared darkly out of the window, thinking dark thoughts of the dark news he'd just received. Just to mix the prose up a little bit, we'll substitute some colorful words in for "dark". For the rest of this scene, if you see a color word, assume that the narrator probably means "dark". Or possibly "black". On the other hand, this will discredit any accurate color descriptions for the rest of the scene… it really doesn't matter. The room was far too you-know-what for anybody to really see colors anyway.

"Whales-dono, Reggi, Selphie and Hobio have all been eliminated," he said pinkly to nobody in particular. A blue look washed over his face and his lips curled ever-so-slightly. "And what's worse, those nuisance Bladers are still alive and making their way slowly in this direction."

Magenta robes curled around his feet as he turned from the window and strode back across the room, mumbling crimson thoughts to himself and trying to consider what to do. "The Grand Master Fangirl is already displeased with our performances, even allowing those five to get this far. We shall have to shape up if we don't want to see her truly furious," the sunshine yellow man pondered to himself. "I will have to take Operation Other into overdrive in the hopes that I can finish it up before they get here… and I will pass the message onto my four surviving comrades in the hopes that at least one of them will be able to take it up to par and defeat those nuisances. BooWAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

The burnt sienna man took a moment to please himself with a hearty maniacal laugh, slowly drifting off and staring out of the prose, where the readers were baffled and a little put-off by the extremely vague exposition.

"Why am I telling you this now?" he asked with a chartreuse frown. "Get back to the present storyline and we'll talk later! Go on! Get out of here!"

**~X~**

On the very opposite side of the universe, somewhere between darkness and light and just barely out of existence, Tobio just had to know what recipe Rago used to get his cookies crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside.

"Dude these are… dare I say it… the best things I have ever tasted?" he said enthusiastically, taking a nip from the side of his fourth cookie and happily adjusting his sun hat with pink and purple flowers on the brim.

"Oh you know a little ginger, a little cinnamon," Rago blushed and giggled like a schoolgirl, doing a little twirl in his flower apron. "My granny passed me this recipe in her cookbook!"

"Oh pshaw, Mrs. Crabshaw, don't be so modest!" Tetsuya tittered girlishly, pawing at the sparkly earrings he'd found. "More tea, Mrs. Nesbitt?"

"Please and thank you, Mrs. Wong!" Wales squealed and bounced in his seat. "There's jasmine in this batch!"

"Do you think this arrangement needs a few more daisies in it, Mrs. Nesbitt?" asked Doji with deep concern. "Really, be honest!"

"Oh no, Mrs. Tremain it looks faaaaaaabulous," Wales said between sips. "Mmm! Hit me with another spot of sugar, would you love?"

"Right awaaaaaay!" sang Ryuga, once he'd put down his blush and mascara. "Ooh, perk up there Mrs. Bloodmoon! The banana bread'll be done in only a few minutes!"

Zeo sighed longingly. "Oh I hope so, Mrs. DeVille. I'm so hungry."

"Ladies!" Sophie squealed suddenly from the doorway, running into the employee lounge with a stack of silky dresses in all the colors of the rainbow. "Look what I found in my closet!"

"Oh those old things?" Rago gasped. "And retro is so totally chic this year!"

"Mmm, is that silk?" Wales cooed with pleasure.

"Oh yeah, look at that lovely mint green and pink polka-dotted one, Wales," Sophie encouraged him. "It would look soooo good on you!"

"Hey- HEY!" Wales suddenly snapped, glaring up at Sophie like she'd just kicked his puppy or called his mother ugly (Tsubasa would remind you that this is figuratively speaking, as Nobodies technically don't have mothers,) "Don't break character, Lar-Lar! I! Am MissusNesbitt."

Though the initial disgust at being called "Lar-Lar" was apparent on her face, Sophie managed to shift into a cool, sweet smile at his insistence. "Right, right. I apologize, Mrs. Nesbitt."

"Um, um, um," Tetsuya hopped from foot to foot. "C-can we maybe try them on, Lar-Lar?"

"Ooh, yeah, that red one would look absolutely ravishing with my hat dude!" Tobio leapt from his seat, stomping his feet excitedly and pointing.

"Ohmigawd you should totally try it on, Mrs. Andrzjewski!" Sophie said excitedly. "You all can! In fact I insist!"

"YAY!" came a shout of voices.

Sophie dropped the stack of dresses on the table and stepped back as the other Nobodies set upon them like a pack of screeching women buying wedding dresses at a 70 percent off clearance sale, "Now ladies, don't rip them! You want them all nice and pretty for the picture!"

"Don't worry honey, we're totally gonna play nice!" Doji held a lavender slip up to compare it with the color of his hair.

"AWMIGAWD the banana bread!" Rago shrieked suddenly and leapt for the oven.

Sophie leaned against the wall smugly, crossing her arms and relishing the scene.

"You utter, utter bitch," said a droll voice.

"What? It's called being 'opportunistic'," she shrugged casually.

"If there's a hell for people like us, I hope you know you're going straight to it," Reiji shook his head, traces of laughter on his face regardless.

Sophie stared at him and raised her eyebrow with a huff. "I'll meet you there. What do you call that?"

"What, this? It's called being 'absolutely friggin' hilarious'," Reiji said of the video camera on his shoulder.

**~X~**

Somewhere right in between the far side of Fandom Fight Beyblade and the far side of the canon universe—so basically, smack in the middle of Fandom Fight Beyblade, the G.S. Externalist had reached the next world and Gan Gan Galaxy had disembarked.

Unfortunately, as the DEM Engines propelled them downwards and into the world's atmosphere, they were suddenly met with a great deal of turbulence, as was the nature of this world. Getting into this world was really the hard part, they discovered—a cheerful sign posted above it proudly proclaimed the fact ("WELCOME! 10,239 FAILURES TODAY : ). Success in this twisted and unusual world rested on a smooth and logical entry, which our heroes unfortunately failed to pull off.

Before Gingka knew it, he was lying flat on his back on the ground, staring up at the sky and reeling from the after-effects of the DEM Engine's failure.

It took him a few minutes to find his bearings after the rough landing—even when you are a large and sturdy boy, it hurts when you collide with a planet after free-falling from some ten thousand feet in the air. He slowly sat up and rubbed his head, glancing around at his surroundings.

The first thing the Pegasus blader noticed was that he was in the countryside, on the border of some lush forest and a wide open meadowland, covered in tall grasses and swishing flowers and a scenic little river that twisted and bent across the landscape. He reached back behind him into Hammer space for the world guidebook he'd been keeping only to find it had vanished… damn, he must have left it back on the gummi ship by mistake.

The next thing he noticed was that he was alone. Tsubasa, Masamune, Yu, and Madoka were nowhere to be found, and Gingka could hear the voice of the earth confirming that there were no Blader-shaped craters like the one he'd created on entry anywhere nearby. The turbulence must have separated them from one another.

_Ah well_ , Gingka shrugged. Tsubasa and Yu would be around somewhere—and it wasn't like any of the three couldn't take care of themselves. He was certainly all right on his own. Tsubasa had six eagles for cryin' out loud—he could take on a small army of Gutless by himself. And Yu and Madoka sometimes had a bit of trouble controlling thier temper when left to thier own devices, but lucky for them "they're own devices" usually involved lots of pain and maiming for the ones who crossed him.

Conveniently for Gingka, there happened to be a road not far from where he'd impacted, and not too far up the road there was a road sign. He took a final look around at his surroundings then carefully stepped over some endangered flora specimens and onto the road, making his way over.

Gingka lifted his foot and reached down to dislodge whatever it was, sturdy enough to have sunk down through a full inch and a half of the finest WBBA standard issue treaded boots.

He lifted it up and examined it between two thick fingers—some broken piece of something. It looked like a shard of glass or crystal, not too terribly interesting. Probably just a piece of something somebody dropped and forgot to clean up.

Decrying the state of the National Open Space services in this strange new world, Gingka made a motion as to drop the shard into his pocket for later disposal. Suddenly, there sounded a growling voice behind him.

"Hold it, buddy! Hand over the jewel shard and I won't cleave you to bits!"

Gingka and the readers shared a similarly awful sinking feeling as they realized exactly what sort of world he'd just landed on.

"If there is a merciful deity of the Bladers, or any sort of deific presence out there looking out for me," Gingka said in a calm, but very serious voice, "Please, let me have landed anywhere but..."

He slowly turned around and if he'd had a heart, would have felt it sinking down into utter misery at the sight of a young man with big red pants, dog ears, and a hip-length shock of impossibly poofy white hair.

"Hey!" the young man snapped, pointing a clawed finger and hefting a tremendous sword.

"Didn't you hear me?! I said hand over the jewel shard!"

Gingka's face met the palm of his hand.

"… Inuyasha."

"I see you've heard of me!" Gingka grinned smugly, throwing his sword back to rest on his shoulder. "Now hand over the jewel shard and I won't have to kill you!"

"Okay, fine," Gingka pulled the jewel shard back out of his pocket and without hesitation tossed it across the way to land at the half-demon's feet.

Inuyasha stared at the shard, then back up at the tremendous man in black. Then down at the shard again. Then back to Gingka. "Wait—you're just… giving me the shard?"

"Yes?" Gingka raised an eyebrow. "You asked for it."

"But you're the bad guy," Inuyasha scratched his head, confused. "You're supposed to take the jewel shard and run off with it."

"Why would I?"

"Because… you're the bad guy," Inuyasha repeated, apparently baffled by Gingka's unwillingness to start trouble. "You're supposed to laugh in my face about losing the shard, and then run off with it and use it in your evil plans."

"And how would I use such a ridiculous thing in any sort of evil plans?" Gingka reasoned with him. "Aside from poking you with it and causing puncture wounds, of course."

"Well, it's a shard of the Shikon Jewel!" Inuyasha argued. "Everybody wants the Shikon Jewel."

"I don't," Gingka informed him.

"Why not?" Inuyasha almost looked insulted.

"Because I've never heard of it and I don't know what it does," Gingka replied. "I assume from your reaction it has some sort of supernatural properties to it, and there are a lot of people who would go out of their way to get a hold of it. Do you often have a problem of strangers and off worlders appearing and trying to snatch it away from you for their own ends?"p>

"Hell yes," Inuyasha snapped. "Over a hundred and sixty episodes' worth."

"Good grief," Gingka marveled, "You used that hackneyed plot for that long?"

Gingka knew he had misspoken when he suddenly felt the glares of the half-demon before him as well as his hordes of adoring fans, all the way through their computer monitors and transcending across the very boundaries of reality.

"You did not just go there," Inuyasha said accusatorily.

"I rather think I did," Gingka shrugged it off.

"Well, don't rag on me about repetitive plotlines. It worked for Dragonball Z," Inuyasha said with a huff.

He suddenly had the very same feeling that somewhere out there, people were loathing him for insulting a cartoon.

"Did I just go there?"

"I rather think you did," Gingka cleared his throat and continued hurriedly. "In any case, today is your lucky day, as I don't consider myself the type to run around and cause trouble for people without any good reason, particularly in the name of an artifact I don't know anything about and don't particularly desire."

"No, no," Inuyasha's face was turning almost as pale as his impossibly puffy hair as he stepped out, utterly ignoring the jewel shard that had landed by his feet. "You don't understand. You have to go for the jewel."

"No, I don't," Gingka turned to head in his original direction towards the signpost.

"No. You don't understand!"

The feeling of something small and sharp bouncing off his shoulder had Gingka pause and glance back. Inuyasha had chucked the shard at him, and was backing away from him, hands tightening around the handle of his sword.

"You have to go for the jewel. Or I'm dead meat."

"Why?"

"Because," Inuyasha swallowed heavily, eyes darting shiftily around as though looking for some shape in the shadows of the woods. "He wouldn't like that."

"'He'?" Gingka asked.

"Yes… he would be furious," Inuyasha was positively trembling in his shoes—or would have been, if he wore any shoes. "He insists that we follow the plotlines exactly as specified… w-we can't stray off of 'em or anything… And h-he'll deal with me if I don't do as he says… He rules this world."

"And what, precisely, is this world?" Gingka asked impatiently, as they were already six pages into the chapter and it hadn't really been mentioned.

Inuyasha motioned to the signpost with a trembling finger. It appeared to be a mile marker sign for a variety of locations, but the arrows had been mostly broken off except for the one on the top that read:

_INCEPT CROSSINGS_

"Well, I apologize for being unable to help you with your problem," Gingka continued studying the sign, intuition directing him to an arrow that read "T. TOWN" and another that read "MIDNIGHT MOONRAVEN MCGEE CASTLE". "But I have no desire to take your little jewel piece. You'll have to find somebody else to—"

Gingka was interrupted as he stepped on another important plot device about as large as a medium-sized jawbreaker. He lifted his foot and glanced down at the road to see a glistening red stone.

Against his better judgment, he reached down to pick it up, only to hear a new, low-to-the-ground voice from behind him screaming, "Okay, ugly! You better give me that Philosopher's Stone, right this instant!"

"Oh hell," Gingka groaned.

Luckily for Tsubasa, he was not having the same sort of problems as Gingka. However, Tsubasa had also landed in an extremely different sort of environment than his teammate.

He found himself wandering through an altogether miserable bleak, desolate stretch of trashy, abandoned buildings. The rain-soaked cobblestone streets were cracked and broken, and weak fires roared in trashcans on the street corners, guarded by forlorn-looking locals in tattered jackets with torn umbrellas.

A dilapidated sign on the side of one of the buildings read "WELCOME TO TOONTOWN".

Any other badass man in a black coat would have been baffled to find the inhabitants of this dreary slum to be a variety of anthropomorphic cartoon animals and people, but this is a member of Organization XIII we're talking about—"Be Prepared", remember? Not to mention Tsubasa was quite used to writing off the appearances of animated creatures—his Somebody had often played poker with the other apprentices and Ryo the Wise's friend King Kenta. The accursed Sagittarius still owed him fifty munny.

Unfortunately, it did not look like the town as a whole possessed even fifty munny. The cartoon inhabitants did not look at all their usual cheery selves, sitting around, walking with their heads down low, dressed in little more than rags and doing whatever they could to scrape together enough to buy food or find a place to sleep for the night.

Tsubasa surveyed the sights around him as he walked, off-handedly wondering where Gingka and the rest of the team had gotten off to. Fortunately he'd grabbed the guidebook from the gummi ship before their impromptu departure, and was strolling around to see if he could get the computer to detect any Blader signals—Masamune's, Gingka's, or Yu and Madoka.

A large group of animals (the four-legged variety) had gathered in one of the alleys; mutts, cocker spaniels, basset hounds, afghan hounds, Chihuahuas, Great Danes, Dalmatians (or were they Labradors? Tough to tell for all the dirt in their fur), a fox, cats in all variety of colors from black to white to orange and striped and in between. They sat, staring forlornly at passersby with sad animal eyes in the hopes of snagging some scraps from someone with a big heart.

Near the end of Jones Blvd sat a broken-down llama with a sign around its neck reading

"LLAMA MILK: 10 MUNNY A CUP".

"Kuzco, you can't get milk from a male llama," a nearby man informed him.

"You can't?" the llama looked horrified. "NOOHOHOHO! My lucrative business!"

A young woman dressed in rags was doing her best to sweep the cobwebs from the porch of one of the broken-down houses, a house that appeared to have an obscene pest problem—bugs seemed to have built an entire city outside it and the mice were so settled in they were developing an advanced society, complete with clothing.

Crowds of animals stood around burning trashcans to warm themselves, while a rooster with a lute strummed nearby and tried to cheer them up with a depressing song about downs outnumbering the ups. A badger stood at a podium, preaching a sermon—"Now stay strong, my brothers and sisters, stay strong! Follow a good path in life! Do your best every day, work hard, and you will not perish, oh no! You will live forever in reruns, happy in the kingdom of Syndication!"

Children in filthy pajamas dug through stacks of garbage, salvaging what they could of abandoned toys—puppets, action figures, and one tattered little teddy bear clutched in the arms of one small child.

"What a dreadful little town," Tsubasa commented to no one in particular.

"Oh yes, I agree," came a voice belonging to a white rabbit in slacks tugging at his coat.

Tsubasa glanced down at the ridiculous creature, taking his coat in one hand and tugging it back away. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all!" the rabbit grinned. "You're new in town, right?"

"Just passing through," Tsubasa assured him.

"Well, everybody always thinks they are," the rabbit replied, running to keep up with Tsubasa, who'd gained a bead on a suspicious signal a few blocks away. "But everybody who comes to Toontown always stays forever…"

"I'd heard of Toontown," Tsubasa figured a little small talk with the rabbit wouldn't be uncalled for, even if he would look rather silly. Not to mention the exposition was rather lacking in the chapter so far. "I had thought it a much nicer place than this."

"Not in Incept Crossings!" the rabbit lamented. "This world's different. It's a big mishmash of all sorts'a worlds, see, and in the old days, every time there was a new invocation we Toons would star in it! But not anymore… we haven't had work in ages!"

"That's unfortunate," Tsubasa sounded as though he wasn't exactly listening.

"You're tellin' me! The overlords keep connectin' new worlds… 'cept all the new worlds get all the work and we're stuck here eating beans and begging for change! On that note… can I interest you in some insurance?"

"Insurance?" Tsubasa glanced down and noticed for the first time a tattered clipboard in the rabbit's yellow-gloved hands. "Whatever for?"

"It's 'getting the stuffing kicked outta you' insurance!" the rabbit said proudly. "A hundred munny a policy! Then I give you this nice piece of paper!" He held up a piece of newsprint with

"INCHOORANTS" written at the top in lipstick. "Roger Rabbit, esq." was written at the bottom in what appeared to be eyeliner.

"And how will a piece of paper protect me from getting the stuffing kicked out of me?" Tsubasa posed a fair question.

"Well… I dunno," Roger shrugged. "But it doesn't hurt to try! Can I set you up for double coverage perhaps, sir?"

"I'd like to see anyone try to kick the stuffing out of me," Tsubasa laughed somewhat haughtily.

"I'm not interested."

He motioned as to step forward and on his way, but was stopped as Roger flung himself at his feet, sobbing. "PBBBBBREEEEEASE, SIR! I need the munny! If I can't pay for food this week, my wife Jessica has to go out and charge people for Pattycake!"

"I'm sorry. It is my WBBA's policy not to interfere with the business of other worlds," Tsubasa said—this was, of course, a flat-out lie. For gameplay purposes it was the WBBA's policy only to interfere with the business of other worlds when there was an active Blader on duty.

Roger blubbered miserably. "But if I don't sell any policies today, Mr. Tasteya's gonna… gonna…"

Tsubasa's eye twitched and he finally stopped, staring down at the rabbit in shock. "Mr. Tasteya?"

"Yeah… the big jerk that runs this town," a new voice belonging to a small goose child with red pigtails, wearing a sandwich board sign advertising Gosalyn Mallard's Maps and Travel information, 10 Munny For Consultation. "He's always down here kicking the stuffing out of us if we make him mad…"

"You oughta be glad you don't work for him!" Roger groaned, rubbing his backside.

"My dad's had the stuffing kicked out of him a million times," Gosalyn said proudly. "Maps and travel information, buddy?"

"Hey, back off! I saw him first!" Roger stood up angrily. "Go peddle your business over there!"

"Would you deny an innocent little girl the money she needs to bust her dad out of jail… again?"

Gosalyn's eyes watered miserably and she sniffled.

"I'll pay both of you to leave me alone, if you tell me more about this Mr. Tasteya," Tsubasa interrupted their squabble in a sharp tone.

The goose and the rabbit stared in wonderment at the stranger, and burst out into a babbling screaming match.

"Mr. Tasteya spends his Wednesdays down at the Ink and Paint Club and—"

"—He lives up in the castle up north with his colleague but he—"

"—Mostly spends his time dealing with all those weird guys from Japan out east—"

"—But he only comes here to kick the stuffing out of people and he keeps threatening to ruin our characters—"

"YEAH YEAH they ruin our characters, they've got this big awful machine—"

"It's not a machine, it's like a ray gun! POW!" Gosalyn protested suddenly.

"No, no, there's no ray gun!" yelled a mouse in a red hat near the ground. "It's smaller! It's more like… like a remote control…"

"No, Bernard—I really saw it as more of a charm or jewel," a second mouse in a purple hat shook her head.

"No, senor," a green parrot with a cigar approached, shaking his head. "They say it is their natural power! All you have to do is anger them and…"

"We haven't seen Aunt Daisy for weeks…" three small ducks yelled at the same time.

"They make living life here mabsolutely iserable—er, er… absolutely miserable!" a short, stuttering man in glasses and a weird hat shouted from a gathering crowd.

"YEAH!" echoed five of his friends as one in the back fell over.

"They're a bother," a stuffed bear said sadly.

"Are you here to save us?" a skinny, dark-haired boy in a red loincloth piped up excitedly.

"No," Tsubasa raised his voice to be heard over the din of the gathering Toons. "I'm not here to-"

"He's here to save us!" the children shouted.

"HURRAY! THREE CHEERS FOR-" the crowd piped up, but quieted.

"… what was his name?"

"Tsubasa," the eagle blader said, bewildered.

"THREE CHEERS FOR TSUBASA!"

Hearing people cheer his name wasn't so bad, Tsubasa thought to himself as the Toons around him screamed and cried and hugged each other in joy. In fact, it was something he could get used to… on his own time, not when he should have been off rescuing the rest of his fallen teammates and finding out where in nothing Madoka and Gingka had gotten off to. He glanced at his watch and waited for a pause to ask that he please be excused so he could keep chasing the signal in the computer.

It wasn't until some quiet drumbeats in the background began to crescendo that he began to look noticeably uncomfortable.

"What are you doing?" he asked the Toons in a rising tone.

"Oh, it's customary around these parts, sir," Roger grinned.

"Oh the worlds will sing of a Blader a thousand years from now!

And not because his sideburns or his braids or hot eyebrows!

While the evil ones up north keep all us Toons down on our knees

The great –"

"NOOO!"

The music screeched to a halt and Tsubasa spun around, pointing and gesturing madly in some kind of enraged frenzy. "No singing! There will be no singing while I am here! Is that understood?"

"No… no singing?" the Toons muttered back and forth to each other.

"I don't see the problem," shrugged the later-era Disney movie characters.

"Absolutely no singing, or I am teleporting instantly back to my gummi ship and leaving you all to wallow in squalor!" Tsubasa snapped.

"Sorry!" echoed the crowd.

"Now please do excuse me. I am going to find my team so we can figure out what to do about this Tasteya fellow," Tsubasa said, motioning for the crowd to part and let him on his way.

He headed on his way further down the street, intensely watching the beeping signal in the back of his book that indicated the presence of a Seme. A Blader's signal was starting to register too.

A wide smile spread on Tsubasa's lips and he picked up the pace.

Once he had rounded a corner, the Toons all glanced back and forth to one another and-

"Who lit the flame in the torch of freedom?

NUMBER THREE!

Who put the 'burns' in-"

"I HEARD that!" Tsubasa yelled.

"SORRY!" the Toons apologized again.

**~X~**

Meanwhile, in a distant Toontown back alley, two unfortunate Toons were getting the stuffing kicked out of them.

"Y'all come 'round here thinkin' y'all can walk peacefully an' all nice-like, HUH?" sniped a cruel voice, most likely belonging to the dark shadow looming across the alley. "Now what y'all goin' 'round thinkin' stupid crap like that, HUH?"

"NO SIR!" Bonkers T. Bobcat sobbed from the corner, cowering under his arms to protect himself from further vicious kicks from the assailant's very nice black and silver Bling-o-rama™ brand Platform Kickin' Shoes. "We have no right to walk peacefully and nice-like!"

"YEEEAHYUH! Y'all wanna 'nother round! Cuz' there's plenty more where that came from, HUH? HUH!"

"YES SIR!" Tummi Gummi agreed woozily from his face-down position on the bricks. "We would love another round! We'd be honored!"

"Well now, lemme think…"

The prose camera panned up from the platforms, up the zebra-striped bellbottom pants and past the red velvet ruffly shirt, past the floor-length mink fur coat, past the twenty bulky silver and gold and diamond necklaces and past the exceptionally long feather on the pimp hat to where Tetsuya's

Seme was carefully preening his goatee with a few fingers. He grinned slightly and suddenly screamed.

"TOO BAD! As much as he'd love to show you wankstas a little more've his Kickin' Shoes,

Homie X Tasteya Watergunny's just got a ring-a-ling from his Burger King all up in HEEEEEEEAUHH," Homie X Tasteya cackled and took a few steps back, glancing at his pager flashing and playing that stupid Gold Digger song that no radio station in America can stop playing for five minutes.

"Up in what?" Bonkers raised his head slightly.

"'Here,'" Tummi whispered.

He was greeted with another cruel kick to the backside as Tasteya laughed himself senseless.

"HUUUWHAT y'all jabberin' about! Y'all gonna miss me? HUH! HUH?"

"YES SIR!" both of the Toons wailed, covering their eyes to shield them from the blinding glint of the bling.

"Tha's what Tasteya likes to hear! YEEEAAAAYUH!" Tasteya tossed his head and took a few steps backwards, presenting a mockingly polite bow of courtesy. "Well s'been real, y'all, but HOMIE X TASTEYA'S gotta be gettin' on 'is way now, YEEEAAAAAYUH!" he let out a jubilant shriek and promptly vanished into a dark portal, leaving bear and bobcat alone in the alley to gather their stuffing.

"Boy, I didn't think we really deserved that," Tummi said with a dejected sigh.

"Oh, who ever does anymore?" Bonkers wailed, throwing a hand over his eyes dramatically.

"This world's really gone to the dogs… the premises are stupid, the anime's run itself redundant, and Toontown's completely neglected. And to make matters worse, when we do get out and about, we poor Toons can't walk down the street without being savaged more brutally than a 4Kids dub!"

"Oh, you did not just go there," Tummi gasped.

"Y'know, I think I did," Bonkers said proudly.

**~X~**

It was a dark and stormy night at Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee. Then again, it usually was.

The castle that housed Incept Crossing's pair of evil overlords was stereotypically far to the north of Toontown, past the Woods of Overused Anime, beyond the Plains of Ill-Meshing Genres and Premises, and thankfully far from the oft-abused Harry Potter Canyon. It was a gothic affair with spikes, gargoyles and black stone comprising much of the architecture. What was not made of stone was made of moody tarnished gold and rubies, and what was not made of moody tarnished gold and rubies was made of blood-red velvet.

The one who'd called Homie G Tasteya and spared the hapless cop and gummi bear from their merciless beating was none other than the Seme's partner-in-crime, the master of Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee (by merit of a coin flip). He was a cruel, shady, and altogether broody soul, a Gutless who rather than spending his days traipsing about kicking the stuffing out of Toons, preferred to spend them locked up within the walls of his castle.

Now, you may be tempted to think that perhaps, due to his solitary nature, the castle's master was somehow a less unpleasant character than his friend Tasteya. Nothing could be further from the truth—he was every bit as obnoxious, sadistic and cruel as his partner.

There were many things to do in the castle that could still give him as nasty a reputation as his colleague—staring moodily down off of balconies, for instance. He took some time every day to work on his penmanship, writing threatening notes to his clients in blood red ink and stamping them with a skull-shaped seal. He was rather fond of playing the pipe organ. And he was widely regarded as a connoisseur of red wine, Bloody Marys, V8, Clamato, cherry Kool-Aid and any sort of beverage that gave the appearance of blood. Namely, blood.

His favorite pastime, however, was staring longingly at the moon, clad in his long black and red velvet robes and running his hands through his intricately styled short silver-grey hair.

His name was Dojo. And tonight he had a big, unsettling smile on his face.

The smile persisted as Tasteya arrived from his black portal, sticking a dramatic landing on the stone floor by posing with his pimp-cane. "Yo-yo, Dojo mah homie, what y'all- HOSNAP!"

"Tasteya, whatever is the matter?" Dojo oozed, for lack of a better word "gliding" across the room to meet him.

"Y'all ain't s'pposed t' smile, homeslice," Tasteya's face twitched slightly—when Dojo smiled, it was not a good thing. "HUUWHAT y'all be smokin'?"

"I all have not been smoking anything, my friend," Dojo said dreamily, glancing back through the stained glass window at the full, bright moon. "But fortune has smiled down upon us this evening, after such unhappy news from the Superior earlier today regarding the deaths of our brethren."

"Tha's coo," Tasteya strutted into the room, cracking his knuckles and plopping down for a seat in an overstuffed red velvet armchair. He tossed his hat to the side, hanging it on a bust of Vampire books. "Wassup?"

"We are blessed with the presence of a very special guest," the corner's of Dojo's mouth curled around pointed teeth. "And the Superior and the Grand Master Fangirl have requested we deal with him in a very special manner."

"YEEEAAYUH!" burst out Tasteya happily. "Y'all waited t' do the honors now, ain't ya?

Wouldn't leave y'all homeslice out've it, HUH? HUH!"

"Certainly not," Dojo rose with a flourish from his long black cloak. "That is why I called you up here… we shouldn't keep our special guest waiting! It would be terribly rude of us, as hosts, not to introduce ourselves as soon as possible."

"YEEEAAYUH!" Tasteya agreed, throwing what he thought were gang signs but were actually Paper-Rock-Scissors gestures. He leapt from his chair, recovered his pimp hat and made his way to the door as giddy as a schoolgirl, but-

"But first…" Dojo said in a lazy drawl.

"HUUWHAAAT!" Tasteya screamed.

"I have been practicing on my organ today," Dojo purred. "And there is something I would like to show you."

Tasteya blinked a little bit at that statement, and responded with a vaguely turned-on "HUWHAT!"

"The pipe organ, you fool," Dojo snapped. "Not that organ."

"Yo Homeslice, that still don't make it no better," Tasteya blushed and scratched his head awkwardly.

"I've perfected that 'Angel The Corpse Of My Lovely' song on the pipe organ, now you are to come and give me a musical critique," Dojo finally said impatiently.

"Maybe later for the…" Tasteya mumbled.

"Yes. Maybe later. If…" Dojo gazed out the window again, collapsing to his knees and clutching at his chest dramatically. "If… the moon permits…"

"YEEEAAYUH!"

**~X~**

A northern road out of Toontown led Tsubasa to an ominous-looking crossroads, and that's where he ran into Gingka, moving at a rather rapid pace as though on the run from something.

"Gingka!" Tsubasa smiled, and the guidebook's signal bleeped and faded out, confirming his presence. "Good, I was hoping I'd find you after not too long… Were you injured in the crash?"

"Good to see you as well, and I'm just fine, thank you," Gingka said, slightly out of breath.

"Where's Masamune and the others?"

"I thought they might be with you," Tsubasa frowned.

"No, I was by myself when I landed," he shook his head and bit his lip. "I wonder what's become of him… I hope he isn't dead."

"Of course he's not dead. What do you think this is, an episode of Fullmetal Alchemist?" Tsubasa waved him off casually.

"Ouch. Did you just go there?" Gingka marveled.

"I rather think I did."

"Well, you're right. He can surely take care of himself," Gingka sighed. "This world is…"

"Annoying, mostly, but nothing too horribly treacherous. Yet," Tsubasa finished the sentence for him. "I just spent the last half an hour being molested and worshipped by a swarm of overzealous cartoon characters."

"Hmm," Gingka did not sound impressed for some reason. "I would trade places with you happily."

"Why's that?"

"I just spent the last half an hour running from them," Gingka motioned over his shoulder to the hill just beyond the road, where a veritable army of anime characters were surging after him, weapons raised overhead and malice and misplaced righteousness in their eyes. Like the Scottish armies of William Wallace they came tearing over the hillside, screaming at the top of their lungs, waving arms overhead and occasionally chibifying just to lower the guard of their intended target.

"Damn," Tsubasa's jaw dropped.

"They're persistent," Gingka motioned for Tsubasa to join him in a brisk run in the opposite direction. "They're each and every one of them convinced I ought to be stealing their precious artifacts or otherwise mucking up their lives, exactly as an episode of their usual adventures would go."

"Mmph," Tsubasa rolled his eyes as they ran. "I suppose we shouldn't have expected too much from Fandom Fight Beyblade."

"Can't they at least come up with a few original ideas? Honestly, I ran into ten or twenty copies of

the same characters just in the span of a few minutes," Gingka groaned.

"A shame," Tsubasa agreed, "But onto more important things—we've got to find Madoka and the others, and then I've got two Seme signals coming in."

"Two of them?" Gingka's lip curled in distaste. "From what direction?"

"North," Tsubasa replied.

"There's supposedly a castle up north. I was going to head there if I failed to find either you or

The rest of Gan Gan Galaxy," Gingka reasoned.

"Yes… and the Toons mentioned a pair of evil overlord ruling the world from a castle in the north," Tsubasa added. "I think it's a safe bet that these evil overlords are little more than the lost… you know of our tem, manifested into creepy pseudo-beings and on a quest for universal domination."

"It just sounds stranger and stranger the more times we hear the whole story," Gingka sighed heavily.

"Look on the bright side. It will make a hilarious anecdote next Dies Natalis Solis Invicti barbecue," Tsubasa shrugged.

By now, you are all probably wondering what, indeed, happened to the rest of the team.

It's a rather long and funny story, unless, of course, you happen to be Gan Gan Galaxy themselves. In which case it is not funny in the least, and anybody who laughs at it is a sadistic asshole and will someday die by team's very hands. Read the following recap with caution.

Masamune, due to some freakish twist of physics perhaps caused by the length of his lovely hair, was hurled off in a separate direction from his teammates mid-crash. He landed far to the north of both of them, right in the middle of a vast canyon housing a familiar castle normally seen in Scotland.

When Masamune awoke, he was in the middle of some type of athletic field crowded around by a sea of British private schoolchildren dressed in gaudily colored robes. Several of them looked oddly out of place from how you would usually picture this particular group of British private schoolchildren—silver and gravity-defying brown-spiked hair was not a usual occurrence in the British private school we know of from our universe.

Masamune knew something was really out of the ordinary when the students all insisted he was a professor, and begged him to get back to the dungeon to teach them potions.

He'd heard about these people.

Fleeing and getting the hell out of the canyon as fast as his legs and teleportation powers could carry him, he found himself lost in a vast wasteland full of the fragments of shattered and forgotten worlds, forcibly implemented into Incept Crossings by the evil overlords to the north.

After what seemed like hours upon hours of encountering Care Bears, more whiny and hapless teenagers than Destiny Whatever High School could ever hope to house, obnoxious children wielding electric rats and card games and fighting tops and digital electric rats and phantasmal powers and magical planet powers and dinosaur fairies and magic sketchbooks and any number of silly things, Dean Koontz novels, Broadway musicals, television gourmet chefs, television lawyer shows, reality shows, CSI: Miami, fast food advertisement personalities, terrifying crack monsters with televisions in their stomachs, terrifying crack monsters with beady eyes and no mouths and hypnotic brainwashing dances, pop singers, boy bands, pop singers who solved mysteries, boy bands who solved mysteries, rappers, rappers who solved mysteries about pop singers and boy bands, and Lindsay Lohan, Masamune collapsed from exhaustion in the middle of nowhere, praying to any merciful deity of the bladers or any kind of merciful deity at all for the sweet deliverance of sudden death.

Fortunately for the unicorn blader (though against his immediate wishes), he was rescued a short time later.

Unfortunately for him, his rescuers were a squad of short, squatty, hunchbacked Gutless in threadbare potato sacks and they carried him immediately to the Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee.

**~X~**

This is where we finally catch up to our poor, abused unicorn blader, as he was bound by chains to the wall of the dungeon in the very bottom floor of the castle, plotting some way to escape and also thirsting for the blood of the sick author who'd put him through such hell.

The trek across the wastelands had cost him most of his patience, as well as most of his energy— keeping himself cool had become a priority, particularly as he was dressed in a floor-length black leather coat in the middle of a sun beaten desert. This left him with little more than his intellect to help him in his escape plot. Once he regained his strength he could muster the strength to teleport.

But these were the Gutless he was dealing with, and despite a proven immunity to their most blatant effects, Masamune didn't want to find out what might happen if the Gutless used other methods of persuasion on him.

Unfortunately for Masamune, Dojo and Tasteya entered the room with no shortage of panache, and he realized with a sinking feeling he was probably going to find out.

"Good evening, my esteemed guest," Dojo bowed gracefully.

"SUP!" Tasteya added.

"If you're hoping to convert me into one of your spineless, shrieking, sobbing little Ukes, you've got another thing coming," Masamune snapped viciously. "Your little parasite won't work on me!"

"Ah yes, I know, I know, we've heard," Dojo said moodily, tossing his head and sending his silver-gray hair all about in a dramatic rush. "The Superior and the Grand Master Fangirl have sent us a warning… and so we have prepared other methods of dealing with you and your… friends."

Masamune set his jaw firmly, clenching his teeth. It was the first thing you learned in Bey Lin school- "Be Prepared". And whatever they had in store for him had to be less painful than accidentally wandering into the remains of a world set in The OC.

"Tasteya," Dojo whispered, eyes set on Masamune and burning with hungry resolve, "Please prepare… the UKENATOR."

"Righty-ho mah Lycan bro," Tasteya tossed a few more not-gang signs (this time, the middle finger, the horns and sign language for "I love you") and meandered over to a nasty-looking switch on the wall, hooked up to a tremendous machine hanging from the ceiling. UKENATOR 3K was written on the sides in big block letters.

"Really, Tasteya, can't you try using the phrase I taught you the other day?" Dojo pouted slightly.

"HUUWHAT!"

"You know…" Dojo insisted with a short wave of his hands. "'Yes, master'?"

"Y'ALL BEST BE GETTIN' UP ON OUTTA MAH GRILL, YO!" Tasteya thrust his head right and left so abruptly it almost looked like he'd tip over in his Kickin' Shoes.

"Fine, fine… it was worth a try," Dojo snapped.

"What are you going to do to me?" Masamune asked icily.

"Well it's simple, really… we can't force your… you know out of your body to join us in the bonds of Seme Brotherhood," Dojo oozed, leaning close and toying with a strand of Masamune's hair around his finger. "But with this machine, perhaps we can… persuade you a little bit."

"Ain't many 'dem foo' dogs livin' roun' HEEEAAAAH's zat can handle da UKENATOR!" Luxory yelled. "WOOT WOOT! YEEEAAAYUH!"

There was a pause.

Masamune blinked. "… what?"

"'Here,'" Dojo said quietly.

"No, no," Masamune shook his head. "The whole… sentence, I… I really don't think that thing is speaking any reasonably widespread variation on the English language. It's like southern… hillbilly… French… gangster."

"HUUWHAT?"

"Tasteya, please," Dojo rolled his eyes. "You're interrupting my evil speech. Yes… now, Unicorno, be prepared for the most intense pain you have ever felt. Your… you know will be throbbing with agony when we flip that switch. If you have any self-preservation instinct in that heartless body of yours, you will be begging to become one of us, if it will only stop the pain. It is the greatest suffering."

"I've seen the Harmonians," Masamune replied coldly. "I'm not afraid of anything you can do. And mark my words, _Doji_ … when I get out of these chains, I'm going to personally kill you."

The machine's rotors began to spin. The room filled with crackling electricity, flickering lights, bright colors and the tingling hum of loud chords, loud enough for the unfortunate victims of the UKENATOR to feel the vibrations in their very chests.

"Yes… it hurts, doesn't it?" Dojo cackled hysterically.

"You've got to be kidding me," Masamune laughed, equally amused.

"HUUWHAT!" Tasteya gaped.

Dojo's jaw dropped and he glared at Masamune in disbelief. "Why aren't you screaming! This is pain

that has made greater men than you bleed out of their eyeballs!"

"'It's A Small World After All'?" Masamune huffed. "Don't make me laugh. I'm half Takafumi Adachi, you fool, that song won't have any effect on me."

"It's a world of laughter, a world of tears! It's a world of love and a world of fears-"

"Very well," Dojo snapped. "I can see you are a formidable opponent, Ray Striker. Tasteya!"

"YEEEAYUH!"

"Change it to Setting B."

The record scratched out and Tasteya's expression dropped into utter horror. "HUUWHAT! Not… not Settin' B, Homeslice! We ain't never had to subject no foo' t' Settin' B!"

"Well it's time," Dojo replied, stuffing a large amount of cotton in his ears.

"What's… Setting B?" Masamune's lip twitched.

"It is the Ultimate Suffering," Dojo made sure to pronounce the capital letters.

Off on the other side of the dungeon, Tasteya was hastily pulling on a pair of blinged-out safety earmuffs, turning the dial to block out all sound as he opened the locked glass case for the UKENATOR 3K's Setting B.

Masamune tightened his fists so hard he could have squeezed sweat from his finger free gloves, bracing himself back against the dungeon wall and taking deep breaths. Mind over matter, he reminded himself. It was mind over matter. Be Prepared. He mustn't show weakness. Tsubasa, Gingka, and the rest of GGG would be here to get him out soon enough, he just had to survive until then.

"It's been nice knowing you, Number Four," Dojo said wickedly. "Pull the switch, Tasteya!"

"YEEEAAYUH!" Tasteya threw the switch to implement Setting B.

At first there was silence.

But then the room filled with the most high, shrill, irritating and entirely horrific sound ever heard by human, blader, Heartless or Nobody kind, a sound that drove all its victims madly, screamingly, killingly insane, a sound that was second only to Paris Hilton's new single in the rankings of

"Most Sadistic Sounds Ever Produced on the Audible Wavelength".

"It's a piece of cake to make a pretty cake!

If the way is hazy!

You gotta do the cookin' by the book!

You know you can't be lazy!

Never use a messy recipe!

The cake will end up-"

Any further lyrics were obscured by Masamune's bloodcurdling screams of torture…

… screams that echoed for miles, screams that reached the ears of Team Gan Gan Galaxy emerging from their portals just outside Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee.

**~X~**

"Tsubasa- Tsubasa, listen… do you hear that?" Gingka put a hand on his comrade's shoulder to stop his charge.

"Yes… what is it?" Tsubasa clenched his teeth—whatever it was, he didn't like it.

Gingka's eyes narrowed furiously. "That's Masamune. And that is the sound of the Ultimate Suffering."

Paris Hilton's new single differs from The Lazytown Cake Song in that it causes instantaneous hemorrhage and death in any poor sap unlucky enough to be exposed to the sound waves. It is the only audio arrangement known to man that actually seeks out prey. They say if a radio playing

Paris Hilton's new single sounds in the forest, and there's no one around to hear it, an angel bursts into flames and falls out of the sky.

**The best part is how none of you believe me that it's really that bad.**

**This chapter, instead of my usual author's note, I present a note from my beautiful beta, Organization VI's very own Seductive Viper, Gext:**

**"I, in my rareified ivory tower, was heretofore unaware of this Lazytown amusement so beloved, I was told, by the peasantry.**

**In my zeal to aid fellow authors, I of course researched the topic before providing gracious advice, and thus came across this cake song. I am sure that among you, dear audience, there are some benighted individuals who do not know of this song and will feel compelled to look it up, as I did. Please, do so! I extend to you, comrade, the Hand of Friendly Camaraderie.**

**I hope you will pardon the fact that it is a left hand, as my right (the Hand of Devious Plotting) is currently muffling my cruelly delighted cackles. I bid you as fond a farewell as I am capable of doing, and hope you enjoy this work of fiction."**

**Well I don't really think I can beat that one.**

**As always, review or flame as you see fit and I will cherish your opinion like a cuddly kitten. See you next chapter! YEEEAAAYUH! XD**


	8. Came Out of a Crazy Mind

**Yes! I am back with another chappie. Ok, I need to stop saying that but, still 6 reviews!? Argh! At least 100 could be good, or even 1,000 would be better! XP**

**But, I want the popularity to climb by every chapter as I update frequently (which I almost never do.) XD**

**Anyway, enjoy! :D**

Just past the rusted, sharpened iron gates of Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee, bordering the winding brick road up to the great drawbridge and front gates, there was a vast and macabre garden. Stems of dead flowers raised the shriveled blossoms into the light of the full moon, like the gristly hands of a corpse reaching out from the grave. Moonlight poured from the silvery orb up above, perfectly round as it always was in this little corner of Incept Crossings—a requiem for the eternal day that had never been born, cloaked in the shadow of the eternal night. Gothic statues stood like monoliths in the deeper sections of the garden, gargoyles and lawn gnomes almost seeming to move in the absence of sunlight. Foreboding bushes lined the path, expertly trimmed into the shapes of Dracula, Lestat, Vlad the Impaler, every film role of Kate Beckinsale up to but not including Click, that girly Dracula from Castlevania, Alucard, Vampire Hunter D, Bela Lugosi and Bunnicula.

At the far end of the path was a particularly proud-looking bush, trimmed into the elegant figure of a very familiar being in a long robe doing his very best to look like he belonged on the cover of a gothic horror novel.

"I don't know why the moon didn't tip me off earlier that Doji's Seme had a part in this," Tsubasa rolled his eyes at the bush's likeness.

"He and Tetsuya's Seme must be working together here. They must be responsible for the horrid shape this world is in," Gingka sighed.

"I couldn't care less about this revolting little piece of nowhere," Tsubasa replied, "But I would like our Bladers back as soon as possible."

"All five of them," Masamune added.

Neither would acknowledge the fact, but the screams of torture echoing from the direction of the castle had been silenced. There was an apparent mutual dread to find out why that was.

A wolf howled in the distance and suddenly there were footsteps—shuffling, stuttering footsteps coming down the stone path in a slow march towards the two five bladers.

"We have company," Tsubasa warned his teammates, drawing a lance up out of the air. Gingka nodded silently and called for his Pegasus Keyblade, moving back-to-back against Tsubasa to keep an eye out in a full circle around them.

"AH-NEE-MAY!" moaned a croaky voice. "AH-NEE MAAAAAY!"

"AH-NEE-MAY! AH-NEE-MAY!" a whole chorus of croaky voices answered.

"Oh hell," Gingka groaned, as they were suddenly set upon by a small mob of pasty, red-eyed anime fans.

Well, this particular mob was made up of a species called Otaku Gutless, so they were considerably more pasty and red-eyed than most anime fans. They wore cat ears, Ninja headbands, tattered and stained shirts with kanji for "I want a Japanese girl/boyfriend" emblazoned across the fronts, blue jeans and Peckachoo slippers. They carried boxes of pocky in greasy fingers and bottles of pressurized ramune hung from their belts, refreshments that could never feed the hunger for all things Japanese that radiated from their dead, glazed-over eyes. The

Gutless symbol was tattooed proudly on their cheeks.

The Gutless in the back began to arm themselves with bootleg Hong Kong subtitled DVDs while those in the front continued their undead march towards our heroes, their arms out and their fingers itching to strangle some gaijin.

"They never seem to be anything more than cannon fodder nuisances," Tsubasa lamented, impaling a whole group of the creatures nearest him on the ends of his six lances.

"No, it makes one wonder when we'll ever have to deal with a real challenge," Gingka agreed, decapitating those on his side.

The wounded Gutless stumbled on the ground after the dealing of their death-blows, but much to the chagrin of our heroes began to slowly lift themselves up as though only given flesh wounds.

"Why won't they die?" Tsubasa snapped after his fourth or fifth attempt to kill a particularly stubborn group.

"This species must have gained ridiculously unrealistic stamina and recovery abilities, not unlike the majority of manga characters," Gingka suggested reasonably.

Unfortunately for the redhead, he was suddenly set upon by a snarling gang of the creatures, squeezing and poking and pulling at him in outraged fury at his callous mispronunciation.

"MAHN-GA! MAAAAHN-GA!" moaned the Gutless.

The Pegasus blader was quite a strong boy, but it was difficult to effortlessly shrug off the spaghettiarmed dorks when there were so many of them glomping all over his legs, arms and back.

"Tsubasa, a little help?"

"Obnoxious little bastards!" Tsubasa roared, becoming quite frustrated as he attempted to free his comrade from the onslaught. Headless, crawling Gutless began to yank on his coat like bloodthirsty zombies, scrawny hands feeling about in his pockets for any sign of a wallet, the only thing that could keep up the crack-like expenses of their favorite hobby. "Back OFF! We don't have any of your accursed cartoons!"

"Actually, Tsubasa. We do." Gingka pointed out rather too quickly.

"Oh, Eagle. Why didn't I think of that earlier?" he stupidly muttered in reply.

A banshee-like shriek sounded in unison from their meek throats, a very insulted scream of "AHNEE-

MAY! AH-NEEEEE-MAAAAAY!"

"I think we pissed them off," Gingka grunted, thrusting his shoulders left and right and trying to swing Pegasus, but barely able to move for the unmoving mass of geek currently clinging to him.

"Son of a bitch!" Tsubasa was not normally the type to curse when the going got tough, but now the little monsters were grabbing handfuls of his braids and yanking him downward to join their writhing cesspool of nerdiness on the ground. "They're stupider than anybody who thinks Ninja is an accurate depiction of ninjitsu!"

"Did you just go there?" Gingka managed a grin.

Tsubasa smirked despite himself. "I rather think I did."

"NAH-RU-DOH! NAAAH-RU-DOOOOH!" screamed the Gutless.

"NUH-RU-DOH!" a solitary Gutless in the back added. The unfortunate little chap was immediately set upon by his own kind, who ripped him limb from limb.

Tsubasa and Gingka stared at the grisly scene for only a second or two before the answer came to them.

"Gingka—answer me a question," Tsubasa said quickly. "What would Aeris do in this situation?"

"I'm not sure—I've always subscribed to the philosophy of Luffy," Gingka replied without missing a beat.

The Otaku Gutless all gasped in simultaneous horror.

"AERITH!" screamed half.

"LOO-FEE!" screamed the other half.

The screaming was met by more gasps of horror.

"AERIS!"

"LUHFF-EE!"

"How about Yuffie?" Tsubasa interrupted the screaming match.

"Oh no, I'd be more concerned about keeping my head in a more Tidus-like fashion," Gingka added.

"YOO-FFEE!" shrilled the incensed Gutless.

"TAI-DUS!"

"YUH-FFEE!"

"TEE-DUH!"

"The real question is what Vincent would do," Tsubasa tossed out a little unnecessarily, as the

Otaku Gutless were already busy screaming and bitching and choking each other over pronunciations.

"BINSENTO!" one rather zealous little fellow in the back yelled and pile-drove a few of his mates.

The Gutless slowly began to fall away from Tsubasa and Gingka, turning instead to the very important task of correcting each other over the pronunciation of the names of fictional characters.

When neither side of any particular argument would back down, there came the slaps, the pokes, the pushes and shoves, the foot-stomping, the biting, the clawing, the ripping and the dismembering.

The two bladers stumbled back a safe distance away and watched the scuffle, recovering their strength with big, evil smiles on their faces.

"Oh, it's a beautiful thing," Tsubasa sighed with a satisfied smirk.

"Makes me wish I'd watched a little more Evangelion, wouldn't you agree, Tsubasa?" Gingka said loudly.

That was the last straw. In a great explosion of noise, the Otaku Gutless gave their final screams of self-righteous trivial nonsense (some combination of "EHV-AN-JEL-EE-ON!", "EEV-ANGEHL-EE-ON" and a few random Japanese curses from the ones who were too incensed and upset to even argue). Then the whole mob of them exploded in a magnificent burst of cherry blossoms, sweatdrops and comical nose blood, leaving nothing behind but smears and half emptied boxes of coconut almond pocky.

**~X~**

"Handled with delightful cleverness as always, Gingka," Tsubasa extended his palm.

"I only wish Masamune and the rest GGG were here to see it," Gingka replied, shaking his hand.

"We oughtn't waste anymore time—let's get inside this place and rescue our unfortunate teammates," Tsubasa motioned over his shoulder.

"Too right," Gingka agreed, and the two of them rushed up the path and through the castle's front door.

**~X~**

If there was one thing Dojo was good at, it was brooding. He had a vast repertoire of skills, but brooding happened to be one of his specialties.

He was currently staring out the theatre window of his chambre in the highest centre tower of the castle, gazing ceaselessly at the full moon with a dark gleam in his eyes. It was almost dark enough to rival that redundantly dark guy from the first part of chapter six.

Ah, but it paled in comparison to the moon, that beautiful spectre in the sky. Its silvery light glinted off the dark fibres on the trim of his robes and the sabres displayed on the walls behind him. It was such a beautiful night. He felt good. Perhaps later he and Tasteya would go outside and grille some beer can chicken.

Suddenly, his pleasant thoughts of a nice midnight barbecue were interrupted by a pair of semi familiar scents catching in his nose.

Dojo inhaled, sniffing. His eyes narrowed. He clenched his teeth together and suddenly the moon was a very unpleasant thing. It was calling to him, chanting his name, trying to edge him away from what was fine and upright and comfortable and admirable and towards the truth…

"Bladers," Dojo snarled to himself, tightening fists so hard his already pale knuckled turned bone-white.

He turned dramatically from the window, his cape whooshing behind him as he stomped towards the chambre door.

They would have to be dealt with immediately.

**~X~**

Following the guidebook's signal and fighting off hoards of Otaku Gutless by starting amusing fights about stupid things, Tsubasa and Gingka were able to quickly navigate the hallways of Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee until they reached the long, dank stairs down into the dungeons, where there were a few weak unidentified signals flashing for attention.

"Do you suppose he's all right?" Gingka asked softly as they reached a doorway at the bottom of the stairs.

"I don't know… we five are supposedly immune to the Gutless parasite, but if they've done something else to him…" Tsubasa drifted off. "And besides Masamune, we still have to save Yu and Madoka in that Castle too."

"If they have, we'll deal with it like we've dealt with the others," Gingka replied. "Simple as that."

He placed a hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, pushing the pair's way into the dungeons.

It was eerily silent in the cavernous main room of the dungeon. All sorts of nasty-looking machines of torture and other unknown purposes hung from the walls, a fairly impressive one hanging from the ceiling above. At the far end of the room was a slab with some body covered by a stained white sheet.

And nearby, chained to the wall and passed out, was Masamune, Yu, and Madoka.

They were obviously not dead, they're teammates noted as they rushed across the room to his aid—

Bladers did not leave bodies behind when they died, but simply faded away into the darkness from whence they came. Whatever happened to them, they was still alive…

But in quite a state. Masamune was bedraggled, exhausted-looking, and paler than the vocal comparison of Paul Rodgers to Freddie Mercury. His hair rested stringy and dirty sticking up in the air and his eyes were closed as though he was merely sleeping. He was unresponsive as Gingka stood beside him and attempted to wake him.

Same thing described with Madoka and Yu.

"Masamune! Madoka! Yu! Wake up! Are you all right?" Gingka hissed, shaking them by the shoulders.

For all intents and purposes the 3 of them appeared to be quite dead, barely breathing—though healthily pulse less.

"What in the hell did they do to him?" Gingka asked in a rising tone, as Tsubasa poked around the equipment on the walls.

"I don't know," Tsubasa glared at the complex machinery and devices like they had personally insulted him in hiding their purposes. He turned his attention to the slab and the still body a short distance away, staring back and forth between the rest of GGG and the figure obscured by the sheet.

"Guys!" Lexaeus said loudly in his ear. "Masamune!"

Suddenly, he began to stir, groaning heavily and letting one of his eyes slide wearily open.

"There, he's awake," Tsubasa sighed with slight relief.

"Masamune, what happened?" Gingka asked him, hurrying over to assess his condition.

Masamune didn't reply for a moment, still seeming to be gathering his wits. He moaned a few short, high-pitched nonsense syllables and stared sleepily at his rescuers, tilting his head ever-so-slightly to the side.

"Are you all right? Say something," Tsubasa urged him.

"Ngggppggnhmggghggm?" he said eloquently.

"There now, calm down," Madoka gave him a few steady pats on the shoulder.

"Hhh! Madoka! You're alive!" Gingka gushed happily, as he approached him and gave her a tight squeeze bear hug.

"Okay, Gihngka." She almost caught her breath. "You can put me down now."

"Sorry." He apologized softly with a blush, his cheeks turning a pinkish red.

"Take a moment to collect yourself."

Masamune very slowly opened his other eye, squinting in the bright light of the room and making confused faces at his comrades, as though working very hard to piece together what had happened to him. He weakly lifted his hands, chains jingling and banging against the wall as he tried to motion something with his hands. "Mmmph," he groaned. "Mmmmmph…"

"What is it?" Gingka urged him.

Masamune began moving his lips very slowly, though no sound came out as he seemed to be mouthing something. He glanced back and forth from Tsubasa to Gingka to Madoka with fear in his eyes, mouthing faster and faster and seeming to shrink away in the horror of remembrance.

"Speak up, Masamune," Gingka pat him on the shoulder again. "It's all right, they won't hurt you anymore. We'll get you out. Just tell us what happened."

He finally began to mumble unintelligibly, the same syllables he'd been mouthing silently, eyes glazing over with traumatized fear.

"Pccktmkaprtycke…" Masamune whispered. "Fthwyshzy…"

"Masamune?" Tsubasa raised an eyebrow.

"Speak up," Gingka encouraged him.

"You don't understand," Masamune's voice suddenly broke in a high-pitched moan. His chains jangled as he reached out, grabbed Gingka, Tsubasa, and Madoka by the collars, and pulled them very close to him. "You don't understand. Can't understand. Can't hear! Can't see can't speak or feel or know can't understand why… why… why…"

"Calm down," Tsubasa said sternly. "Just tell us what happened."

"Bits and pieces little bits and pieces of apple chunks coming up," Masamune's voice was tilting into a miserable wail. "Running and walking on two legs dancing singing like a girl… not a girl, not a girl, a monster… grotesque plastic faces smiling and laughing and moving like it's natural but it's not natural right and left and back and forth and up and down… can't speak can't hear can't feel or know don't understand why… why! Why!"

All three of them (except for Yu who was passed out.) stared at their Unicorn teammate in horror as the events of the past few hours began to come together.

"By the book by the book by the book by the book by the book," Masamune's voice rose into a helpless scream. "BY THE BOOK! BY THE BOOK!"

"Masamune…?" they mumbled together.

His eyes got very small and his mouth opened very wide in a shriek of pure terror. "YOU GOTTA DO THE COOKIN' BY THE BOOK! By the book… by the book, oh merciful worlds, not the cake… not the cake… They wouldn't stop… hours… minutes fading into hours of it… the cake… i-it's the cake… THE CAKE!"

The other Bladers quickly broke themselves out of Masamune's grip and backed away as fast as they could, eyes wide in shock and terror.

Organization XIII (Oh, great. Here we go with the KH plus MFB talk again!) was not a nice group of sort-of-kind-of-former people. They toyed with minds, they twisted relationships, they used lives as tools, they manipulated innocents, they spread chaos, they captured hearts, they lengthened the lines at the DMV and they commanded Heartless. They caused destruction and mayhem, they were amoral and didn't care about the consequences, they used any means to achieve their ends.

But no member of Organization XIII, no matter how desperate, no matter how mean, no matter how evil and no matter how determined to find a heart, would ever—ever—do something like this to any being, human, Heartless and Nobody alike.

"Those bastards… those sick, twisted sons of bitches!" Tsubasa growled.

"This will not stand," Gingka glowered. "They will pay."

"Will they?" a cool, evil voice whispered from behind them.

Suddenly Tsubasa, Gingka, Madoka, and passed out Yu were thrown forward by a burst of green lightning strikes. They skidded to a halt just short of slamming the poor delusional Masamune into the wall and turned around in time for a very climactic lightning strike and thunder clap, announcing the presence of someone new.

The body on the slab slowly rose up, unnaturally loose and dragging limbs like a rag doll. A pale hand yanked away the sheet and—

"YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAWWW! Y'ALL BOYS IS ALL KINDA EXCITIN' T' BE MEETIN' FOR TH' FIRST TIME!"

It was fair to say that this was the first time anybody had seen Masamune (or at least, somebody who looked just like him) in a sweat-stained trucker cap. His red flannel shirt was tucked into ripped and greasy blue jeans, the pantlegs similarly tucked into a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots and held up by a pair of camouflage suspenders. The creature on the table snorted loudly, hocked a massive loogie off to the side and grinned like an idiot with shiny white buck teeth.

The Masamune-thing spun on the seat of his pants and hopped to his feet, adjusting his ball cap and hitching his thumbs in his pants pockets.

"HOOOOOEEEEYYY! HOWDY Y'ALL!" he more or less hollered. "MOSSYMOO KADOOYEAH'S mah name!

Awful pleasure t' be meetin' y'all!"

Tsubasa, Gingka and Madoka stared silently at the Seme, then over at Masamune, staring in abject horror at the creature that had risen from the slab.

"Oh no no no no no no no no no NO," Masamune mumbled.

"I ain't hitch a ride her by ma self! Meet ma hickedy partners, too! YEEEEHAWWW!" Mossymoo cheered as he snapped his fingers to announce the presence of two more Semes into the scene.

There was Tsubasa's seme, who wore a simple arcade freak shirt tailored by Atari. His pants resembled simple jeans with ordinary brown boots, the ankle to knee length part almost covering halfway of his skinny length jeans. Smart looking glasses framed his lovely golden eyes as he was too busy moving his fingers rapidly in response to the fast action Russian/Japanese arcade game he was playing.

"Hey, there guys." SOOBAWSUH Atari calmly greeted. "Anyone wanna play Tetris with me?"

"He plays Tetris?" Gingka whispered nervously towards Madoka, who in return gave out a solemn shrug.

"Aw, Tsubasa. What happened?" Yu slowly stirred, as his head wasn't able to regain consciousness and yet again hit his head back on the ground.

As soon as the Eagle blader heard that, he immediately pulled out his six Eagle lances in sweet anger. Charging forward, he replied crossly, "I do NOT play TETRIS!"

As soon as SOOBAWSUH reeled back with an almost wining victory for himself, the Eagle blader stabbed the screen with one of his lances, thus making the arcade machine cough out tokens and sparks of electricity.

His seme almost took a horrified face, "Um, excuse me? That was really rude for you to interrupt my game. That was expert level and I almost completed level 1,230!"

Tsubasa sighed in return, making his eagle lances shimmer out of sight. "Listen here, I don't know what you are-…"

"I'm a seme."

"Fine! I'm you! But it doesn't mean that playing video games-…"

"Arcade."

"Argh! Fine! Arcade games, whatever! That doesn't mean that we are different. Personalities don't mean the same person. We are the SAME person! Somebodies and Nobodies-…"

The rest of GGG did an anime fall as Tsubasa mentioned terms from boring old Kingdom Hearts.

"- are basically the same thing! Now, get your ass into the Tupperware right now!"

"Not to me it is!" announced a new voice.

Mossymoo softly cheered to himself with thrilling excitement, "Boo-yeah! Here comez ma Libyan cowboy!"

Yu perked his head up in response of his own voice coming out the mouth of his seme, the Libra blader almost jumped out of clothes in utter of horrible surprise.

"Ahh! What happened to myself!" he shockingly wailed.

"Meet ma man here, Yay Techno!" Mossymoo introduced.

Apart from the original Yu, this seme was not to mess around with. He may seem cute with his solider vest, military green training pants, and a faint green clawed off turban wrapped around his batch of puffy orange hair. Plus not to mention black military boots with the most tight laces ever. And the most dangerous weapon for a small kid to handle with. A pure badass AK-47 wielded right from his small childish hands.

He then started laughing, "Mossymoo! Should we bring these Gan Gan Galaxy crooks to our Libyan leader, Gadhaffi?"

"Aw, hell ya! We should lasso their asses back to the middle east where we can finally show these cattle turds to that Grand Master of a Fangirl! Yeehaww!"

Leaving Mossymoo to howl with Texas laughter, and SOOBAWSUH resuming his game by playing handheld action paced, that left the rest GGG to ask each other what's happening at this moment.

"What was it Masamune said we were to do if he ever got turned?" Tsubasa asked.

"He said to give him twenty minutes and if he wasn't back to normal, kill him," Gingka replied.

"Am I alone in thinking it would be a mercy killing if we put him out of his misery now?" Tsubasa whined.

"No. No, Tsubasa, I think Masamune would appreciate it if we saved him a little dignity and killed him immediately." Madoka pointed out.

"But he did say twenty minutes," Tsubasa lamented—if it were him, he would certainly want to be dead.

"Let's see if we can't defuse the situation before then," Gingka said grimly.

"Awww shyoooooot!" Mossymoo giggled lecherously, grinning like he'd just won free tickets to a Toby Keith concert. "Y'all ain't gonna be gettin' rid'a me so soon now, are ya? I been waitin' t'deal y'all a hand'a TEXAS DEATH HOLD 'EM!"

"For Gadhaffi!" Yay cheered with laughter as he immediately raised his machine gun skyward, randomly shooting the ceiling and littering bullets everywhere.

SOOBAWSUH fairly ignored the happenings by simply sighing to himself and calmly continued with the game.

With all of the racket of chaos happening in the unknown world that GGG accidently crash landed- oh, wait, It's the Moonraven McGee castle- a lil' Jon quote screamed and rippled through the air as GGG and their semes stopped fighting so suddenly.

"HUWHAAT?"

The sudden shine of bling across the room announced the presence of Homie X Tasteya Watergunny, posing melodramatically at the top of the stairway. He spun his pimp cane and grinned, showing off a mouthful of sparkly gold teeth. "Now Tasteya knows y'all ain't makin' plans f'r card games 'round HEAH wit'out 'im, EH? EH?"

"HOWDY 'CUZ!" Mossymoo greeted his Seme brethren with a mighty helpin' o' Southern friendliness, waving and tipping his hat. "Y'all wanna come on down an' help me take these fellers out?"

"AW HELL NAW!" Tasteya burst out. "Homeslice's all 'Yo Tasteya we's gonna turn all three'o'dem peeps t' our side, an' we gets us some favas from the Sups', ya dig?"

"Hear ya loud n' clear, buddy!" Mossymoo danced a little excited jig. "An' after that can we go find us a honky-tonk?"

"HUUWHAAAT? Aw MAN y'all's all into that country shit, BOYEEE?"

"Dern skippy, 'Cuz! Let's GIT R DUN!"

"HUUWHAAT?"

"GIT R DUN!"

"YEEAAYUH!"

"I didn't understand a word of that," Tsubasa said, shaking his head in utter disbelief.

"I'm almost glad Masamune isn't in any condition to witness this," Gingka said optimistically.

"In any case, he and the English language have suffered enough," Tsubasa summoned all six of his lances and began to hover a few feet off the ground. "I don't know how much more of this I can stand. Let's get it over with."

"We're down to seventeen minutes before we should kill Masamune," Gingka caught Pegasus as it appeared in thin air before him, hefting it over his shoulder.

"Once again, we can clearly see the importance of having a living will that your friends and family know about," Madoka said off-handedly to the readers.

"I know I will make it a priority as soon as possible… you never know what can happen," Gingka agreed, nodding sagely.

"You take Tasteya's, I'll take Masamune's?" Xaldin suggested.

"Sounds good to me," Gingka nodded and treaded across the room to face his opponent.

With a smug grin, Tasteya kicked a switch on the floor nearby as Gingka approached. A hip-hop rhythm filled the room through the extra large speakers, and he twirled around in circles before striking another dramatic pose. "Yo-yo big guy, 'SUP? Now y'all gonna watch n' learn cuz HOMIE X TASTEYA- he got Skillz That Killz, a'ight?"

"Okay," Gingka did not look very impressed as Tasteya launched into a snazzy four-minute hip hop

crunk and break dancing demo, a fairly disconcerting sight for anybody who knew the Crabby friends from his Nobody life.

But suddenly the music began to speed up. Tasteya stood straight and snapped his fingers in time to the beat. He grinned at Gingka evilly and a dark glow came about him.

Gingka tightened his fists around his keyblade, bracing himself for Tasteya's inevitable first attack. He watched closely as the Seme reached into his pocket and pulled out four flashy holographic-backed playing cards, carefully studying the numbers and the suits before throwing them up in the air.

This was going to be difficult.

Let it be known that though Tetsuya was the only member of Organization XIII without a real, threatening weapon, there wasn't one among their number who would ever doubt how dangerous and skillful a fighter he was (this does not include Zeo who as far as we know, wields nothing—and you are all very well aware of just how intimidating "nothing" can be). New recruits and cocky challengers always laughed when they found out that "all" Tetsuya could do is play games and make wagers. Tetsuya always took it in stride, simply smiling and then challenging the offender to a little game of cards or dice.

This more often than not resulted in humiliated, naked and penniless offenders begging and pleading for Tetsuya to stop collecting the "stakes" as he saw fit.

Number Ten was single-handedly responsible for the end of the Organization's weekly Game Night, after the great Monopoly Incident of several years ago. The man is named after a casino and the creator of Kingdom Hearts for cryin' out loud.

So when Tetsuya's cards began to swirl around him faster and faster, more illusory cards gathering behind him and spinning in preparation to strike, one cannot blame Gingka for hedging his own bets the way he did.

"Y'all gonna be prayin' to yo momma fo' mercy up in HEAH!" Tasteya cackled maniacally. "Y'all can't stop the HIP-HOP!"

"Yes, I can," Gingka extended his hand and began to concentrate.

"YEAAAYUH? How y'all thinkin'?" Tasteya snorted condescendingly.

"With feathers of speed," Gingka replied as Tasteya was suddenly slammed to the ground and entombed in six cubic walls pure light and stone. "Let's see you dig out of there with your pimp cane and playing cards."

Meanwhile, Tsubasa was clashing with the horrifyingly out-of-character Masamune Seme, backing away briefly from the Eagle blader and wiggling his fingers. "Y'all're pretty tough, partner!

I'm'onna make you squeal like a piggy," Mossymoo giggled.

"I'll go easy on you if you just promise to never, ever say that again," Tsubasa groaned in disgust.

"Now why y'all goin' all off'n tryin' t' kill me now?" Mossymoo asked with a twisted grin. "Y'all know

I'm havin' FUN over here on off by mahself an' away from that!" He gestured back over to the real Masamune, who had fallen silent and was watching the proceedings with a blank expression.

"We both know you're not going to be here very long," Tsubasa grasped two of his lances in each hand while the other two spun around him protectively. "Let's just get it over with."

"Ah-HUH!"

"I said, 'Let's just get it over with'," Tsubasa repeated.

"Ah-HUH!" this was accompanied by a sudden, spastic jerk of Mossymoo's head.

"Are you listening to me?" Tsubasa snapped.

"Ah-HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH!" There was something clearly wrong with Mossymoo as his head continued to jerk and his limbs twitched convulsively. "YEEHAW! YEEHAW! YEEHAW! P-pp- p-p-p-p-p-partner!"

"That is NOT me," Masamune yelled desperately.

"I know, Masamune, just stay there and stay calm. I'll deal with him," Tsubasa replied as he and Mossymoo circled each other, the latter still jerking like a Final Fantasy fanboy in line at the Advent Children premiere.

Did I just go there? I rather think I did.

Meanwhile, Yu readied his protective armour of a shield towards Yay's gun point. Facing each other, Yu gave out a playful smirk, "So, you think that you can take me out with you're gun, huh!?"

Yay stopped pointing and raised his gun just for a pause of conversation, "Yup, and you can't take on my %100 pure made in Libya bronze bullets!"

"Libya? More like China!" Yu then laughed at his own joke.

The more Yay heard this, the more he started firing bullets at his richoting shield.

"Ha! What good does that do? My Libra shield is pure anti-Libyan. So that means those bullets are harmless if you don't try hard enough! Try to see if you can dodge this! Libra! Super Sonic Waves! Go ahead and have it!" Yu's shield now glowed Libra green as pulsing and irritating sonic waves struck Yay in the heart and was blown off 3 ft away. His AK-47 was thrown to the ground from the impact, which instantly dis integrated into the ground.

"Madoka! Now!" Yu ordered as the Beymechanic jumped forward and caught the floating purple sphere that hovered over Yay's dead beaten body.

"Caught it!" Madoka announced as she peered into the side of the box and was proud of herself to see their mission progressing halfway.

Meanwhile, Gingka glanced over towards Masamune who was half-passed out and Tsubasa dealing both with the Texas Unicorn of lightning cowboy fury and the pimpy gangster crabby guy. Since he was doing that, and Yu finished off with Yay (Madoka was now recording the info on both seme tracker and guidebook.) he was wondering what SOOBAWSUH was up to. There was the arcade maniac, playing a fast action paced game on his handheld device.

"Uh, can I play too?" he asked nicely.

"Sure." He pat the ground next to him where he was sitting, and Gingka started playing level 2,360. Finding it very intense, Gingka then blushed and changed his mind by handing the device back to Mr. Atari. "Dang, I didn't know Tetris was that challenging."

Smiling, he invited the redhead's face closer by his shoulder and watch the expert play it.

"No… I mean, that is not me!" Masamune repeated, still dazed, but doing his best to make sense and gesture with his chained hands. "Not my Seme!"

"It's what?" Tsubasa whipped his head around to glance at his teammate in shock.

"Behind you!"

Tsubasa lurched forward suddenly as Mossymoo tackled him, wrapping his arms around the lancer's neck and squeezing his throat. "YEEEHAW! RIDE 'EM COWBOY!"

Screaming in rage, Tsubasa swung an elbow back to knock the whatever-it-was off of him, spinning and lunging to dislodge the evil redneck Masamune from his person. Finally he managed to get an arm around the thing's neck, pulling its head forward for a nice gentlemanly meeting with Tsubasa's fist.

Tsubasa figured something was very wrong when the front of Mossymoo's face impacted. "What the hell!"

"YA GOL' DARN GONE AN' DUNNIT!" Mossymoo fell to the ground and continued to spasm, sparks popping from his joints and smoke pouring from his eyed, mouth and nose. "I GOT FRIENDS IN LOOOOOOOW PLACES!" Layers of skin, hair and clothes purchased from an Army Surplus store began to crumble and melt away from a metallic frame.

"Merciful darkness," Tsubasa cursed, backing away from the malfunctioning Mossymoo and grasping at his throat. "It's not a Seme, it's a Replica!"

"Kill it!" Masamune snapped from his spot on the wall, apparently feeling more like his old, cranky self.

Never the type to ask questions or debate when the options came down to killing or being molested by a creepy replica of a friend of his (which happened fairly often, surprisingly), Tsubasa gestured with his hands and a rain of four lances fell from nowhere, impaling the Masamune Replica to the hard stone floor in a great shower of sparks and motor oil.

Once everything quieted down, Tsubasa recalled his eagle lances and let out an immense sigh. "Why didn't you say anything earlier, Masamune? We were ten minutes from putting you out of your misery!"

"If the two of you knew what they put me through before you got here," Masamune growled, looking quite a bit healthier than he had a few minutes earlier thanks to a Blader's innate powers of recovery, "You wouldn't be so snappy with me."

"Something about cake?" Tsubasa asked as Madoka and Yu made his way over to join them. Masamune shuddered visibly at the hated word.

"I've got Tetsuya's and Yu's Seme trapped over there for the moment," Madoka informed them, "We can deal with him whenever we're ready. Good to see you feeling better, Masamune."

"I can speak coherently, at least," Masamune grumbled, "But I still feel as though I was hit by a train."

"At least your… you know are intact. But why would they bother making a Replica of you?"

Tsubasa wondered out loud, staring distastefully at what remained of Mossymoo.

"It's fuzzy," Masamune replied as both Madoka and Yu got to work releasing him from his chains. "But I don't think their coercion methods to get a Seme out of me were working."

"Good show, Masamoo moo," Yu complimented him. "Very strong of you, to stand up in the face of such pure, absolute torture."

"Thank you," Masamune sighed, weary and exhausted. "I used up much of my power trying to withstand their experiments… I don't think I'll be up for any fights on this world."

"And we wouldn't ask it of you. Concentrate on regaining your strength, and Gingka and I will handle any more fighting that needs to be done," Tsubasa assured him. Then he remembered about where the Pegasus Blader was supposed to be. Instead of joining them, there he was sitting cross legged on the floor at the corner, happily playing Tetris.

"Aw man! Hey, SOOBAWSUH! I reached level 3,650!" With thrilling excitement, he turned to face where Tsubasa's seme was supposed to be, but his achieving news eventually faltered at the sight of just his clothes neatly folded and his glasses topped the stacked outfit. "SOOBAWSUH?"

The rest of GGG approached him, with Tsubasa kneeling down in front of him with a simple smile.

"Gingka, you missed it. He's in the Tupperware, did you forget?"

Gingka now stared in confusion at the place where his seme was. "Huh? But-but he was just right next to me! I swear on Pegasus that I was watching him play Tetris. I-…" Gingka stopped himself as a hand was placed on his shoulder in understanding. "Uh?"

"Gingka, why would you think I'd really be an arcade maniac instead of a blader?"

"Hm, yeah you're right." He stood up, quickly massaging his aching buttocks from long time sitting cross-leggedly on the floor. He didn't even had a chance to change sitting position due to his intense attention on the multi- colored screen that could almost give you some serious seizures. How was SOOBAWSUH able to stare at it for more than 24 hours!?

From up on the top of the stairway, there came the sound of a slow clap.

"Bravo… bravo, gentlemen. Very nice detective work," Dojo smiled eerily at them as he appeared in all his gothic glory. "The Grand Master Fangirl and our Superior were very insistent that we find a way to incapacitate the three of you, but your dear friend we captured just didn't seem to want to cooperate."

"You!" Masamune snarled, freed from his chains just in time. "You sadistic bastard! You're going to pay for what you did to me!"

"Ah, Doji!" Tsubasa smiled with fake good-nature. "We thought it was you holed up in this horrible, drab little castle!"

"Don't call me by my slave name, Eagle boy," Dojo threw back a predatory grin and brushed very shiny short grey hair from his face, eyes glittering in the dim light of the dungeon laboratory. "Wait."

He paused suddenly and placed a hand on his chin. "No, no, no, that won't do at all. What a terribly-timed entrance!"

"Pardon?" Gingka called up to him.

"I ought to have come in right after you mentioned the Replica," Dojo snapped his fingers. "No, no, see, what did I say? About detective work! Agh! It'd sound so much more diabolical if I came in at the proper time… Now hold on a moment, I'm going to leave and come back and we'll try that again. Say something about the Replica!"

Team Gan Gan Galaxy stared at him dumbly as he spun around and exited the dungeon again with a loud slam of the door.

"What in the name of…?" Masamune mumbled.

Tsubasa eyed his two teammates much the way one eyes their very first encounter with mislabeled

Pokemon tentacle hentai, and said, "What about the Replica?"

From up on the top of the stairway, there came the sound of a slow clap.

"Bravo… bravo, gentlemen. Very nice detective work," Dojo smiled eerily at them as he appeared in all his gothic glory. "The Grand Master Fangirl and our Superior were very insistent that we find a way to incapacitate the three of you, but your dear friend we captured just didn't seem to want to cooperate."

He smiled suddenly, and laced his fingers together. "That was much better. Perfect."

Ignoring the dumbstruck trio down below, Dojo slowly mounted the stairs and continued drawling on in a light, sinister voice. "Yes… all we needed was to buy a little time from our dear

Superiors until we could figure out how, precisely, to get our hands on those lovely you knows of yours… So my associate Tasteya and I built a Replica until we could present our masters with a true Seme."

"No wonder it broke down so quickly," Gingka snapped, "With such shoddy, hurried construction."

"It is much better than you could have done, you dundering oaf!" Dojo snapped, then paused again. "'Dundering'… hm… 'stumbling'? 'Plodding'? 'Traipsing'…? Ah, yes- It is much better than you could have done, you traipsing oaf!"

"As though it weren't enough you were the empty, brainless shell of one of our most loyal associates in Organization XIII," Tsubasa yelled, pulling a lance out of midair for the ensuing combat. "You are also a ridiculous, elitist idiot and a sadistic torturer, whose evil is unfit to exist in even the deepest darkness!"

"As such," Gingka added, hoisting Pegasus over his shoulder. "We're going to destroy you, and your associate."

"Ahahahahah!" Dojo laughed maniacally, throwing his hands up to the sky as a window shade across the room dramatically flew open, pouring silver moonlight into the dungeon (despite the fact that the dungeon was underground). "You insignificant worms! Hm. 'Worms'…? No, no… maggots… maggots! You insignificant maggots! You fools really think you can defeat me? Me, Lord Dojo, the castellan master of Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee? Overlord and ruler of all Incept Crossings? HAHAHAHA!" He threw out his arms and his cape whipped in a sudden indoor wind behind him, dramatically accentuating the organ chords from nowhere. "Entire worlds have crumbled beneath my mighty wrath! And the three… no, the two of you think you can possibly defeat me?"

"In a word, yes," Yu snapped, not taking Dojo's snide comments about Masamune's inability to fight in a very light manner at all.

In actuality, Dojo was referring to the fact that Masamune had vanished somewhere between his first and second dramatic entrances, so there were, in fact, only five Bladers standing against him.

"Very well… allow me to show you just how hopelessly disillusioned you are," Dojo sneered as he reached the bottom of the stairs, and crossed his arms over his chest in the manner of a corpse lying in the coffin. "Moonlight! Shine down upon me!"

Dojo began to tremble and quiver, taking on a vaguely evil glow as the moonlight cascaded over his body. His eyes began to glitter blood red and he lurched as though undergoing some transformation.

"Oh, wonderful," Tsubasa groaned.

"Let me guess. He's a werewolf in this world, isn't he?" Gingka added lamely.

"Either that or he's Sailor Moon," Tsubasa quipped. "In which case all we need to defeat him is to call him by his dubbed name. He'll convulse and explode in a blind rage."

"Or we could insinuate that he's actually Tasteya's cousin instead of his lover," Gingka smirked.

"Or we could simply wait until his androgynous sex-changing allies appear and they refuse to dub him in North America," Tsubasa put in.

"And we most certainly went there," Gingka concluded with sarcastic smile.

Across the dungeon, Dojo was fully in the throes of his transformation, growing claws, shorter and silkier silver hair in a mane down his neck and back, and fangs. Adorable puppy ears sprang up from his head and once he had made it about halfway—that is, before he got too terribly ugly or beastly—the transformation ceased. He threw his cape off to the side and cleared his throat, emitting a loud and primal howl at the moon.

"Sssso you ssssssee?" Dojo snarled, as the last echoes of his howl dissipated through the room.

"You forccccced me to reveal my TRUE SSSSSELF! And now, I am going to DESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTROY you!"

"Bring it on," Tsubasa challenged him.

Dojo's lovely hair fell in his face as he paced towards them slowly, dramatically, each step a testament to his bad assed evilness and his lycanthropic nature, eyed wide and teeth bared, lips pulled back into a gruesome snarl. "As I made your ridiculous old man comrade scream for mercy, I will make you scream when you are writhing beneath me as I sup upon your blood and devour your still-beating heart from-"

No sooner had the words escaped Dojo's lips when there was the sound of electrical jolting from up above. The Seme and both Bladers looked up quickly to see what was going on when a tremendous piece of scaffolding holding the UKENATOR 3000 snapped from its rivets and tumbled to the dungeon floor with a deafening crash. GGG were able to teleport safely out of the way just in time, but Dojo had barely managed to dodge, finding himself pinned as the scaffolding ground against the floor and barely missed impaling him, merely trapping him against another massive machine.

"First of all," an icy voice screamed from atop the fallen scaffolding, "I am neither an old man, nor am I ridiculous."

Dojo grunted and squirmed, trying to escape from his predicament and growing just the slightest bit panicked as a dark figure drew closer and closer to him with something in his hands.

"Second," the voice continued, raising his hands and coating the scaffolding and floor with thick, twisting spires of lightning that stuck Dojo's arms, legs and torso to the wall, limiting his movement even further. "I never screamed for mercy from you, you sick, deluded bastard."

Dojo glared in fury at the angry silhouette. "You releasssssse me thisssss insssstant! I was not BORN to be CAGED-"

That's when Dojo saw what Masamune was holding—and he fell completely silent, save for a pathetic puppy-like whimper from the back of his throat.

"And third," Masamune hissed, leaning inches away from Dojo and staring him straight in the eye.

"Nobodies. Do not. Have. Hearts." He slipped a pair of rudimentary headphones over Dojo's werewolf ears and took a few steps back towards the switch.

"Wh-wh-what are you doing!" Dojo yelped. "You can't… n-no! No! You wouldn't!"

"I'm only keeping my promise, Dojo," Masamune sneered. "I did say I'd kill you myself, didn't I?"

And with that, Masamune flipped the switch.

Silence filled the room.

Then came a dreadful noise. It was the sound of continued silence where there should have been screaming—but it was the silence that occurred when the victim was utterly incapable of screaming for one reason or another. Dojo was incapable of screaming because his entire body had seized into convulsions—his eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth froze open and blood poured from his throat and the corners of his eyes.

The rest of GGG appeared over Masamune's shoulder and glanced down in horror, just in time to watch Dojo choke to death on his own vomit.

Then he exploded.

From the chunks came a burst of purple glowing sparkles, devolving to the shapeless purple blob the Seme had been born from and leaving a smear on the dungeon floor to mark where his body had been. Madoka very calmly opened the Tupperware and Doji's you know drifted wispily in to join its comrades, almost serenely, as though it didn't remember at all what horrors the monster it had been was just subjected to.

Masamune, utterly calm, flipped the switch off.

"What in the name of any merciful Blader deity was that?" Tsubasa demanded after a moment of silence.

"Payback," Masamune shrugged.

"No, I mean… what was that? I've never seen such a reaction!" Tsubasa sputtered.

Masamune brushed his hair from his eyes, looking quite satisfied at his vengeance. "Paris Hilton's new single."

This was a side of Masamune that Tsubasa had never observed before. He took a very small step away.

"Anyway," Masamune quickly changed the subject, "Let's finish off Tetsuya's Seme and get the hell out of here. I'm sick to death of this world."

"One problem there," Gingka called from where he was examining the stone chamber that had held Tasteya.

"What?" Tsubasa paced towards him, concern evident on his Eagle. "What happened?"

"He's escaped," Madoka said drolly, gesturing to the small hole in the side of the rock that appeared to have been dug by a pimp cane.

**~X~**

Homie X Tasteya was not as all-out imposing as his late colleague Dojo. He did not have the eerie atmosphere about him, he was not the lord of the castle (thanks to that one stupid coin flip) and he was never accompanied by thunderclaps or sultry moonlight or gargoyle statues.

He was not, however, stupid.

Upon escaping from his rocky predicament, Tasteya had known good and well that his partner Dojo was going to die. Tasteya was an enterprising Seme, however, and knew that even if Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee fell to the wrath of the three Nobodies, he could still get away with some glory.

Unfortunately, sneaking out the back way while leaving his partner to suffer the most horrible death imaginable did not qualify one for glory, so Tasteya was happy enough to settle for getting away with all the treasure from Dojo's vaults.

He was currently zipping away from the castle as fast as he could in the G.S. Escalade, a tricked out model with spinning rims, vanity plates, pink and purple leopard-print interior upholstery, fuzzy dice in the window and a custom paint job with hot rod flames and bunnies. The extra spacious backseat of the gummi ship was filled to bursting with munny, valuables, jewels and gold, all stolen from the castle's treasure vault and previously stolen from the unfortunate residents of Incept Crossings.

"Yeeaaayuh," Tasteya sighed dreamily, leaning far back in the driver's seat and blasting on some

Ginuwine to relax as he made his getaway. He bobbed his head and set the cruise control and the hydraulics, and the ship drifted lazily through the sky on its way… well, he didn't know where, exactly. He just needed to find a new 'hood to haunt'.

Cruising just over Toontown, Tasteya glanced out the window at all the suckers down below.

They'd hear about Dojo soon enough, and he was sure they'd be really happy about it, too. That is, until they heard that Tasteya was still around…

This wouldn't be too bad! He was the sole lord of the world now! Sucked to be Dojo, but hey, may the best man survive, right?

"YEEEAYUH," Tasteya agreed with his own thoughts.

Thoughts that were quickly interrupted by a shrill beeping noise.

"HUUUWHAT!" Tasteya sat up and stared at the ship's monitor, flashing red and white obnoxiously over the CD player.

"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. EVASIVE ACTION SUGGESTED."

Tasteya scrambled to take the ship back into normal mode, cursing quietly under his breath and glancing out the back to try and get a good view of his pursuers. The words "G.S. EXTERNALIST" were written in proud block script on the bow of the approaching gummi ship.

"Whudda foo' bros thinkin' they gonna chase Tasteya gotta nudda fing comin', A'IGHT?"

"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. EVASIVE ACTION HIGHLY SUGGESTED."

"I'M WORKIN' ON IT!" Tasteya yelled back to the computer.

"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. ENEMY WEAPONS CHARGING. I WOULD MOVE MY ASS OUT OF THE WAY IF I WAS YOU."

Struggling against the tight controls jerking around in the turbulent airflows, Tasteya desperately thrashed right and left to get away from the sights of the ship behind him as the alarms blared louder and louder.

"WARNING. WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. ENEMY GRAVITRON CANNON PREPARING TO FIRE. IMPACT IS ESTIMATED TO

DESTROY THE SHIP. EVASIVE ACTION HIGHLY SUGGESTED- OTHERWISE PLEASE ASSUME THE SAFETY POSITION."

"HUUWHAT POSITION?" Tasteya screeched at the computer.

The computer showed a helpful diagram of a stick figure man placing his head between his knees and kissing his butt goodbye.

"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. COUNTDOWN TO IMPACT IN TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SIX…"

"HUUWHAT! Huuwhat happened to seven!" Tasteya shrieked.

"JUST KIDDING. SEVEN… SIX… FIVE… FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE… HAVE A NICE DAY!"

"Yeaayuh, thanks," Tasteya glowered, crossing his arms in an angry pout.

A few moments later, a fourth shining purple something was floating in the Tupperware dish.

**~X~**

A beautiful fireball lit the skies of Toontown that evening.

But this wasn't any ordinary fireball. It was so bright it made the bleak, rainy skies of the slums look like the brightest day of spring, beautiful rainbow lights shimmering shrapnel down from a smoky burst high in the air. The Toons woke from their bleary dreams and wandered out of their broken-down houses to watch.

Then it occurred to them that the explosion had spawned some sort of weird rainstorm. Huge, shining drops began to fall from the sky in the general direction of the explosion.

"Dad!" Gosalyn yelled, racing back and forth across the town square and gathering up the "raindrops". "Dad, look! It's not rain—it's MUNNY!"

"Well whaddya know?" Drake Mallard had just now broken himself out of jail with a paperclip and stared up at the sky as the munny came raining down.

But it wasn't just munny. Jewels, gold, precious family heirlooms, stolen items that the Toons had been missing terribly were falling from the sky and into the open arms of the characters who desperately needed them.

"Jessica! Sugar plum! Sweetheart!" Roger squealed joyously, speeding into the waiting arms of his voluptuous human wife, "I found your wedding ring! I didn't lose it when I fell into that open sewer!"

"Oh, Roger, darling, I'm so happy!" Jessica sighed, hugging her husband.

"This means that Lord Dojo and Lord Tasteya must have den beef eated! Er… been defeated!" stammered a short fellow in a brown hat and glasses.

"Isn't that wonderful!" the woman in rags cried happily.

"YAY! I'M RICH AGAIN!" cheered the llama.

The Toons gathered in town square for a happy celebration, a great bonfire and a dance concluding in the blissful group singing the Toontown official anthem, "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile".

"This calls for a masterpiece to commemorate the occasion!" a short blue bear in the crowd mumbled to himself, racing off to work as the inspiration hit him.

**~X~**

The G.S. Existernalist floated through space on its way to the next world, and Masamune was taking a much-needed chance to help himself recuperate.

"I think we've had a very good session, Masamune," Madoka took off her reading glasses and put away her psychiatry notes. "I think you're well on your way to beating this thing."

"Thank you, Madoka," Masamune sat up from the couch and stretched, taking a deep breath. "I heal a little more every day. You two will forgive me, of course, if I refuse to partake in any celebratory cake once this mission is done and over with?"

"Perfectly understandable," Tsubasa assured him, leaning against the doorframe and enjoying a box of coconut almond pocky. He'd already announced the updated news to Hikaru, who thought that having a fearsome battle with anime freaked pastry alien beings sounded very ridiculous.

"I don't know what could possibly be worse than that world," Masamune mumbled, shaking his head.

"Now, it's not so much the concept of a crossover that is terrible," Gingka corrected him, heading up to take the controls of the ship. "But the trite, repetitive, clichéd and overdone crossover is something to be avoided."

"Not to mention, a crossover becomes difficult to maintain if you cannot properly keep your eyes on the characterizations of all the different characters involved," Tsubasa added. "It's also quite perilous to maintain the 'feel' of each of the worlds you are attempting to invoke. It's in that aspect that Dojo and Tasteya utterly failed, resulting in the destruction of every world they touched."

"A shame, really," Masamune sighed. "There was so much potential."

"Except for that Inuyasha fellow," Gingka cut in. "He's completely hopeless."

The three all shared a laugh.

"And look at it this way, Masamune. We've seen the limit. There's nothing possibly worse that you could go through on this journey," Tsubasa assured him.

"Damn right," Masamune huffed.

"I'm picking up a world in the near vicinity, gentlemen," Gingka called back to them. "Should we approach it?"

"Pick up some statistics first," Masamune replied. "What's the name of it?"

"Uh… readings indicate the place is called…" Gingka paused, and then made a very odd expression.

"Gingka, what world is it?" Tsubasa urged.

"It's called 'Voreland'."

Masamune choked. Tsubasa spit out bits of pocky.

"ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT!" they screamed in unison.

The G.S. Externalist screeched to a halt and shot off in the opposite direction, full throttle.

**~X~**

Months later, the square of Toontown was a very different place. The buildings were clean and white with a fresh coat of paint, the roads were paved and what had once been piles of trash were now lustrous flower gardens.

In the center of it all, though, was a tall marble statue donated to the Toontown Civil Center by noted sculptor Gusto Gummi, a breathtaking and majestic work featuring a strapping man in a long coat with a head full of braids and most majestic of all, a pair of magnificent sideburns.

"He robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor!" sang the minstrel to the children gathered around the statue as they joyfully clapped their hands and joined in.

"Stood up to The Man and he gave Him what for!

With his sideburns alert and a confident grin

The Hero of Toontown, the man called Tsubasa!"

**Hey, anybody who gets the references wins an automatic assurance that they are a Really Cool Person!**

**Sorry this chapter took so long! I really hate to be a whiny angsty sapmongerer, but uber thanks to all of you guys who enjoy my fic and leave me such wonderful comments. I've had a tough couple of weeks but knowing you guys appreciate all my work is just awesome. Thank you and may you pet many kittens!**

**And uh, no offense if vore is your cup of tea. But you're certainly not going to find it here.**

**And no offense to Paul Rodgers either. He sings well enough but come on… it's Freddie.**

**Incidentally, I'm sorry, Masamune. I am eternally devoted to paying you back for what I did to you.**

**PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!**

**BYEZ! XD**


	9. Except for Me and my Monkey

**So, on the bright side! Here comes my favourite chappie (OH GODS AND I'M STILL SAYING IT!) which includes Team Wild Gang and the world of Vacilliation Heights.**

**Enjoy! :D**

Jinga was having the most wonderful dream of his life. Or his un-life, if you prefer. The important thing is not to get technical with the living states of Nobodies, but rather the state of the dream.

For one thing, in his dream Jinga had no idea where he was or what was actually going on. He couldn't remember the Gutless attack, the siege of the Castle That Never Was, his abrupt kidnapping and the unfortunate chain of events that had been set in motion with his abduction. He could not remember the faces and names of his tormentors, nor could he remember their plans for him. Terrible, evil plans that would be set in motion soon after chapter nine.

For another, there was no risk of him waking up halfway through, right when it got to the good part— a most unpleasant occurrence, the author assures you, like this one time she dreamed she was the chick in the "Raining on Sunday" music video and Keith Urban was just starting to fiddle with her tank top strap and then her alarm went off and she was late for work and the whole day was darker because she missed a chance for a dream-hickey from that stud and… um.

Jinga would sleep until he was awakened by either his captors or any would-be rescuers.

Contrary to what many of you may be thinking, Jinga was not dreaming about any sort of naughty "Raining on Sunday"-esque encounter with Reiji or anybody else. We will make that perfectly clear.

No, Jinga dreamed of a summer that would never end. He dreamed of long lazy days with nothing to do but whatever he wished. He dreamed of blue oceans, white wave crests and turquoise sand bars stretching as far as the eye could see. He dreamed of a golden beach with lush green palms and warm breeze, juicy fruit cut up in a paper bowl and the remnants of popsicles sticky on the edge of his lips.

He dreamed of girls in bikinis.

The corners of his mouth curled into a dazed smile as he slept, securely bolted down to a slab in the dankest corner in the deepest room of the darkest tower in Fandom Fight Beyblade.

**~X~**

The second darkest tower in Fandom Fight Beyblade glistened faintly with the last flash of lightning.

Gloomy rain poured constantly down on its weather-beaten glass panes and sleek black steel roof.

Black steel clashed so bad with the mirrored glass.

The top room of the tower was an impressive, luxurious loft with black-painted walls decorated with posters of multiple-word-named bands like My Chemical Romance, As I Lay Dying, Avenged Sevenfold and The Wispy Silver Breath of Flaming Passion in a Sunny Meadow For My Beloved (another one of those dumb one-hit wonder punk bands that sound just like the other twenty thousand). Chains and washed-out shadowy photographs with a terrible case of the angles decorated gray bulletin boards and wrinkled Hot Topic shirts littered the ground and the back of an overstuffed black upholstered chair, where a very depressed being was currently sprawled out upside down.

From here… he could get his true twisted perspective on the sick world.

The tower's sole humanoid occupant was an experienced brooder for his age. Not quite so experienced as his old friend Dojo had been, but with the unfortunate demise of the lycanthropic melodramatic he was now in the top spot. Dojo had always been a good friend of his… or the closest thing he had to one, anyway, as it was plainly obvious that nobody cared whether he lived or died. But now Dojo was gone…

It was so hard being at the top… alone.

He was off for the day, which left him with nothing to do but mope. He would have been brooding but out of respect for Dojo he decided to abstain from that for a while. He'd have to stick with moping, glowering, languishing, pouting and sulking until nightfall.

Nightfall was the only time of day that matched his dark soul.

Suddenly, the pint-sized Seme was interrupted from his gloomy thoughts by a shrill beeping noise.

He glanced up at the monitor before him and sighed heavily to see an unfamiliar signal beeping— something had just entered the world's atmosphere. Something was zipping through the sky on its way to the city.

Something that would add to the misery of his already horrid day, week and existence in general.

Sigh.

With an immense groan, he reached out of his chair for a gothic-styled telephone, one of the old ones with the turning dial instead of buttons. Unfortunately it was rather difficult to turn the number dial while upside down and sprawled out, so he ended up having to shift quite a bit to reach the speed dial.

After a moment or two of ringing the other end picked up and a soft voice asked tentatively, "… hello?"

"Kyoyo," he sighed heavily, "They're on their way."

"ISH THAT SHO!" the voice at the other end squealed in excitement. "I'LL HAVE TO READY MY SHPEDOODLEPANTIES!"

"You do that," he muttered. "I haven't got the will to deal with them. It's all too much effort."

"FIGHTING EVIL BY MOONLIGHT! WINNING LOOOVE BY DAYLIGHT! Clorox bleach turned all my hair white! I AM THE ONE CALLED MISTER SPOON!"

"You're an idiot."

"Awww WHY SO BLUE PANDA BEAR!" Kyoyo howled with laughter. "Dun be sho shad! KYOYO TARTARGUMMYBEARS will deal with them and be done in time for CAPTAIN KANGAROO!"

With a final maniacal cackle, Kyoyo hung up on his end and Nile's Seme sighed yet again, replacing the handset and sprawling out on the chair to wallow in despair.

Great. The five were here. Now they were all screwed.

**~X~**

Imagine, if you will, the paint aisle of a hardware store. More specifically the wooden shelves upon which there are stacked the paint sampler swatches—those colorful pieces of thin poster board with mock-ups of the paint colors on them for couples to hold up to each other and say things like "Grasshopper Smile will never go in the family room! I was thinking more of a Traffic Cone Rhapsody or a Pencil Grindings Gray!"

Imagine somehow taking every paint color in those sampling swatches and turning the intensity up a hundredfold—past the threshold of visible light and into the spectrum they use for coloring children's TV shows these days. No—in fact, more intense than that. We are talking some intense color here. Liberace's rainbow sequin disco suit in stadium lightning intense.

Imagine taking every one of those intense-beyond-intensity colors and cartoonishly mixing them all together into one gigantic can of paint, with the colors staying separated but also running together to make even more colors, colors that have never before been fathomed by the human imagination. Every color in the infinitely possible spectrum from Red to Violet, from Mother of Pearl to Macaroni and Cheese, from Baby Poo Green to That Color They Say The Universe Is Teal.

Now imagine loading that paint into the bucket of a fire helicopter and spraying it haphazardly all over a major metropolitan area and the surrounding landscape, however impossible it may be to paint the sun Stabbing Your Eyes Out Pink.

If your imagination is lacking today, suffice it to say that our three heroes landed on a world that was garishly colorful.

It took five minutes or so for them to allow their eyes to adjust. They were used to black buildings on dark streets and a dark sky in the World That Never Was—the most colorful thing to be found there was Sophie's language during certain times of the month (mainly, always).

Other than the nauseating color scheme, the world did not appear too terribly different than the suburban part of Vacilliation Heights. Shops and homes stood along a central street, pleasantly crowded with all manner of zany characters and creatures, each odder than the last. In the distance floating over what appeared to be a city park was a tall and equally colorful steel tower, impressively suspended over the ground by an elaborate anti-gravity device and slowly following some preset orbit, lazily making its way east.

Rainbow-colored clouds drifted through a Technicolor sky, pouring some grainy white rain down on the landscape, coating purple trees and orange streets and colorful buildings in a fine layer of "snow". Llamas could be found in every direction and the scent of cheese wafted through the air.

Monkeys worked on a long line of typewriters down Main Street. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green towered over your head. You could look for the girl with the sun in her eyes, but she was gone.

Bum bum bum.

"There was already a joke about that song in chapter five," Gingka said politely.

And there in the central square of the little city block, standing up high above the wacky cars and trees and people was a large sign, proudly proclaiming in all its colorful glory WELCOME TO…

_VACILLATION HEIGHTS_

"Let me guess," Tsubasa began after a long moment of stunned silence, "Before we get any further in. This is what happens when 'clever' young writers 'cleverly' create a 'clever' world which features the 'clever' insertion of their 'clever' sense of humor."

"And 'cleverly' assume that by 'clever' humor, they mean idiotic driveling that they pull out of nowhere and cobble together in a grotesque mishmash of what they assume to be grade A 'clever' material," Masamune added.

"And then they 'cleverly' share these things with the world by 'cleverly' sticking some combination of the words 'random' and 'crack' in the summary, 'cleverly' protecting them from any criticism that may result by setting up a 'clever' defense at why their feeble attempts at 'clever' humor are moronic and appallingly bad?" Gingka concluded.

They glanced at each other for a few quiet seconds.

"My, wasn't that preachy?" Yu remarked with a smirk.

Masamune lifted his hands and caught a small sample of the white substance raining down upon the landscape. He put his tongue to it and sensed the immediate sharp sweetness of pure sugar. He sighed irritably. "May I be the first to offer the sincere hope that this voyage is very short?"

"Yes. Yes, you may," Tsubasa assured him.

"Bad news, gentlemen," Madoka glanced down at the beeping world guidebook. "There's two signals here."

"Two signals of what?" Masamune did not sound the slightest bit pleased at this news.

"Two Semes," Gingka said grimly. "One nearby and one extremely far away."

"Striker help me," Masamune groaned and buried his face in his palm.

"Any telling who they are?" Tsubasa queried.

"No. But the list is growing rather short, after all," Madoka shrugged. "Cheer up guys, it shouldn't be too difficult. We can take care of the Seme nearest to us first, and then head across the world a little ways to deal with the other."

"Very well," Masamune said with a resigned sigh, "But I swear, if there are any sophomoric attempts at 'humor' while I'm here-"

He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a purple llama on a scooter, zipping past the trio on the very walkway they were standing on. It shrieked "SURRENDER THE PANTS!" at the top of its lungs and sped away, cackling maniacally and singing old show tunes.

"- like that one," Masamune groaned. "I will not hesitate to kill something."

"That wasn't funny," Tsubasa said in a dead tone of voice as they watched the llama disappear into the distance. "Unexpected, yes. Strange, yes, but hardly what I would call amusing. You could stick just about anything in that paragraph for the same reaction. You could have manatees pushing rubber balls with jokes written on them into a slot and get similar results."

"Ah, a veiled reference to a popular television show making fun of another popular television show," Gingka commented. "That is moderately funny."

"Indeed," Masamune sighed. "Far more amusing than this inexplicable obsession there seems to be with llamas."

"HIDEY-HO, MASAMUNE!" a small anthropomorphic chocolate cake said cheerfully, materializing out of nowhere to tug on the side of Masamune's green hoodie.

With a scream of terror Masamune punted the jolly little fellow across the way and into a river, panting and gasping for breath.

"Now, see, that was funny," Yu pointed out, laughing and gesturing in the direction the cake had flown.

"Having a cake of all things appear to frighten Masamune is amusing, based on past assumptions we have made about Masamune and his current feelings on the subject of cake."

"That was not in any way funny!" Masamune snarled furiously, looking about ready to rip Gingka's hair out by the handful.

"Oh but see, it was—had it been any other type of dessert or even a creature or animal, it wouldn't have been funny at all," Tsubasa laughed slightly.

"Still preachy," Yu warned them. "Let's try hiding the messages in amusing metaphors and drawn-out jokes."

"The usual, hmm? Sounds just fine to me," Tsubasa shrugged.

Masamune dusted off his hoodie and brushed his red strand of hair back out of his eyes in a huff. "Let's get down to business. We'd better start pinpointing and following that signal if we ever want to get out of this hellhole. What direction is it coming from, Madoka?"

The Beymechanic studied the back of the guidebook and finally pointed. "Here. Due west. Not terribly far… in fact, I would hazard to guess it may be coming from that rather conspicuous floating tower there. That looks like a rather obvious place for a Seme to be, doesn't it?"

"Indeed," Tsubasa had ceased his teasing and now looked ready to get to work, staring up at the tower hovering over the park a short distance away.

"I must admit I'm curious," Masamune began as the three of them set off towards the tower in the distance.

"About what?" asked Yu.

Masamune pursed his lips slightly and gestured over at the tremendous sign sticking up over the rainbow-colored buildings and trees. "The name of this world. It's Vacillation Heights, correct? Which would imply some sort of wavering quality to the world, or some kind of switching back and forth."

"What about it?" Tsubasa pressed him onward.

"What could be so terribly wavering about a world centered around failed attempts at random humor?"

Oh, if only they knew.

**~X~**

Currently in charge of the world of Vacillation Heights was the loud fellow that Nile's Seme had spoken to on the phone earlier, Kyoyo Tartargummybears. Kyoyo for short. He did indeed reside in the floating tower that our five heroes were heading towards.

Kyoyo was currently taking a bath in a turtle-shaped sandbox filled to the brim with aquarium rocks, amusing himself by blowing bubbles with his spit. He was vaguely aware that there were five beings on the surface of his world that sought to do him harm, but he honestly couldn't be bothered at the moment. That Hudson was such a worrywart. All he ever did was call up Kyoyo complaining that his "sooooul huuuurt" or his "woooounds just would not heeeeal" or that he "loooonged for the sweet release of deaaaaath".

Hudson was BORING.

Kyoyo was by all accounts a spastic fellow, though some could have deigned his behavior merely "quirky". A far more popular descriptor of him included the words "shrieking abhorrently obnoxious infantile twit". He bore only a passing resemblance to the Blader who had spawned him, his wild green spiky hair decorated with what appeared to be paintbrush swatches of random colors.

He also appeared to have given himself tattoos with a box of magic markers, as there was not an inch of his skin left untouched by cheerful scribblings of kittens, rainbows, sunshine, cheese, pants, llamas and purple monkeys.

It had been apparent since the day the Semes were born that Kyoyo was different than his brethren. They had their quirks, each and every one of them, but Kyoyo was the only one dubbed by the Superior to be completely incapable of handling an entire world all by himself. This may have stemmed from his tendency to miraculously lose his underwear out from beneath his ballerina tutu and Elvis suit in the middle of every single staff meeting.

As a result, the Superior assigned a very unenthused Hudson to accompany Kyoyo down to

Vacillation Heights and share the world with him in a complex arrangement that would no doubt bear some heavy emphasis on the plot of chapters eight and nine.

But now is not the time to fully discuss this arrangement, for suspense purposes.

Kyoyo smiled evilly as he managed a rather large bubble of his saliva. He leaned his head back against the edge of the sandbox and gazed lazily up at the strobe-lit ceiling with the plastic glow in the dark planets stuck up there with that weird sticky tack stuff that first grade teachers use. How he loved those planets. He'd had quite a difficult evening last night upon discovering that they took Pluto off the list of planets, and in his fury he'd swallowed the tiny celestial body.

This morning's trip to the restroom had been interesting.

But there were far more important matters to attend to.

Kyoyo raised his fist and snapped his fingers. A trio of rainbow-colored Gutless that looked like small winged gummy bears appeared above him, answering their master's call with a grunting "GRRR."

"Francesca, those TERRIBLE Bladers are coming to turn my butt inside out," Kyoyo lamented dramatically to the center one, kicking his feet up out of the sandbox and rolling over.

"Be my shpeshul heartypants and go DESTROY them, pretty plz?"

"GRRR," said the Gutless, who was apparently named Francesca.

"What! You changed your name to Poodlepants? WUHTUHFUH!" Kyoyo expressed in dismay.

"GRRR!" Francesca accentuated again.

"Oh! No, your brother-in-law is in town on business! That's wonderful! Well tell him if he wants to go to the oyster bar with us he'll have to provide his own tandem bicycle, 'cuz we're all out of room once we pack on Moira and Olae and Xipe-Toltec," Kyoyo went on happily.

"GRRR?" Francesca let out a frustrated sigh.

"What? Don't be an idiot, Ricardo, Moira and Olae and Xipe-Toltec are MY NIPPLES!" Kyoyo squealed with glee and hopped out of the sandbox, spraying aquarium rocks everywhere and prancing over to the coat rack to get his Elvis suit and tutu.

"BWAHAHAHAHAH! We'll show Hudson-poo-doodle-pantsy-pookie-pie-McGee who's the REAL MAN around here, GRRRR!"

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and burst into hysterical giggles, primping his hair and puckering his lips.

"Yes, Gutierrez, I don't care HOW you do it, but make sure those crankypants meanie-butts are dead before they get up here! Or rather that they don't get up here, because they can't get up here if they're dead. Unless you carry them. Ooh, on second thought, bring them to me and I'll deal with them myself! With RELISH!" he cackled maniacally and held up a jar of sweet pickle relish.

Yes, there was no mistaking the pure evil that radiated from the depths of his non-existent Seme soul.

"McDoogle!" Kyoyo interrupted his peals of evil laughter suddenly, whipping his head from right to left. "Did you hear that! Somebody has penetrated the outer defenses of my impenetrable tower of IMPENETRABILITY!"

"GRRR?" Francesca looked up in alarm.

"YES! YES!" he dropped to the ground and put his ear to the floor. "I can feel it coming back again! Like a roll of thunder chasing the wind! Oh! I feel it! I feel the cosmos!"

"MOO?"

"Right here, see, the cosmos piece fell off of my glow in the dark planet set a few weeks ago and

I've been looking for it everywhere," Kyoyo held up a bit of plastic that could vaguely resemble the cosmos. "Oh yes, and it seems those noodly nuisance Bladers have nobly entered my lair! You and your friends go down and give them a warm welcome!"

The three Gutless nodded and headed towards the door down into the stairwell of the tower.

Before they vanished, their leader glanced back to see Kyoyo wrapping his head in a healthy layer of aluminum foil.

"I am activating the tower's defenses! WHEEEE!" he shrieked stupidly.

Francesca rolled her eyes and gestured for her comrades to keep going and leave their diminutive master to his… whatever he was doing.

**~X~**

Imagine a place where anything can happen. And by anything, the author emphasizes absolutely anything. Logic and reality are twisted up into each other in a grotesque helix of absurdity, randomness reigns supreme, math, science and statistics are thrown to the wind in a greatly chaotic explosion of bright colors and wacky goings-on and silly animals and random sound effects, all cascaded over with a great coating of sugar.

Imagine taking an extra-large photograph of this place, a photograph so large it would cover the side of a several story building like a mural. Imagine cartoonishly throwing this photograph into a giant blender with a half carton of strawberry kiwi flavored yogurt, ten cans of the obnoxiously colored paint you imagined earlier in the chapter, two pounds of sugar and a herring and hitting

"liquefy".

Now imagine pouring the contents of the blender into a paint gun and giving it to a berserk gorilla riding on the back of a bull sprayed liberally with cow pheromones, and imagine setting the two of them loose in a tall foreboding tower with spiral staircases and sleek steel architecture not unlike the final level of a video game.

If your imagination is still lacking today, suffice it to say that the interior of Kyoyo's tower didn't look too terribly different than the outside.

"Somebody's desperate for more pages," Tsubasa said with a smug smile from the other side of the fourth wall.

Our five heroes appeared horribly out of place inside the zany tower, shining beacons of cold black leather in sea of extravagant paint. They were making their way slowly up the spiral staircase around the outside of the tower, glancing warily at the many central floors of the tower and the insanity they housed.

"They don't appear to be Gutless," Masamune remarked in a quiet voice, trying to keep their presence in the tower a low-key affair. "Just… oddly placed kitchen appliances and bizarre animals."

"Lots of sugar as well," Gingka added, brushing away the powder building up on his head and shoulders like so much high-calorie dandruff. "Like some kind of twisted menagerie of insanity."

"This is still, of course, somebody's mistaken ideas about what constitutes as 'humor'," Yu grumbled ill-temperedly. It would take hours to get all this sugar out of his hair, although he had the tendency to lick it all. Yum.

"Who would find any of this funny?" Madoka asked no one in particular, throwing her hands up in frustration as they passed a washing machine that bounced like an El Camino with hydraulics, blasting out "La Cucaracha".

"It's hard telling," Gingka seemed to be trying to puzzle out an answer to himself. "But I know this sort of imagination is more or less effortless."

"Yes," Tsubasa felt strangely compelled to add, "It is the long and plot-filled pieces with the subtle, nuanced comedy that are so difficult. There ought to be more appreciation for those who create such worlds in this sickening dimension of Fandom Fight Beyblade."

The rest of GGG glanced at him curiously.

"What? Where did that come from?" Masamune asked.

Tsubasa blinked for a moment. "You know, I'm not sure."

"Pathetic, desperate, egotistical little twit," Masamune rolled his eyes.

They shrugged and continued on their way up the tower.

Near the top floor, the stairs leveled out into a wide platform that crossed the tower's diameter. It was decorated in the style of a very odd garden, with tall statues of ironing boards and one regal depiction of Chad Kroeger. Flowers lined a long winding path across the floor to the elevators at the far end—and the fact that they were colorful should be quickly assumed. Confetti and pretzels were scattered liberally across the grounds and elevator music piped out of a speaker system from the walls.

Tsubasa tested the elevator doors and found them to be locked, the call button unresponsive. A fairly obvious keyhole was set below the button, the key absent from the hook that should have held it.

"Well, now what?" Gingka asked, crossing his arms in puzzlement.

"This would, of course, be an opportune time for some kind of horrible Gutless monster to appear from behind us and display the key hidden on a ribbon around its neck, requiring us to utterly destroy it before we can move on," Madoka pointed out.

"HAAAA!" came a shrill noise from behind them.

"Dammit, Masamune, I hate it when you're right!" Tsubasa winced without turning quite yet.

"We turn on three," Gingka sighed. "One, two…"

But as soon as they turned around they found themselves staring back at an adorable waist-high little bugger with yellow skin, blank eyes, fuzzy hair and an apple juice box clutched in his spindly hands.

"I HAVE GINGIVITIS!" the creature said proudly. He did not, however, have the key around his neck. "I LIKE CEREAL!"

"Oh," our five heroes sighed with relief.

"GRRARRGGHGNGGHGH!" roared something climbing up the inside wall of the tower from behind the little creature.

"Oh," our five heroes sighed again.

"IT'S A LLAMA!" the yellow creature screamed and tore away as fast as his tiny legs would carry him.

"It certainly is," Tsubasa remarked as the creature placed a gigantic hoof on the garden platform, slowly pulling itself up to face the intruders.

It was actually not so much a llama as it was some kind of mutated mass of rainbow-colored goo, which happened to have a llama sticking out of the front end. The fearsome pack animal bleated in rage and the rest of the goo began to boil and churn around it. More bleating llamas began to form out of the sludge as it continued its ascent up onto the platform.

"It's a llama," Masamune said.

"There's a llama," Gingka pointed out as well.

"And another little llama," Yu added while chuckling.

"Fuzzy llama."

"Funny llama."

"Llama…"

"Llama…"

"DUCK!" Tsubasa screamed, and all three of them hit the deck as a wide arm formed out of the oozing mass, transfiguring itself into a blade and swinging wildly as though to decapitate the five intruders.

"Oh, I see," Tsubasa said as he summoned his lances in a short gust, "It can transform into random things in the heat of battle!"

"Now it's a dishwasher," Gingka yanked Pegasus up out of the ground beneath their feet and blocking a sudden barrage of frilly pink teacups with a quick swing.

"That's not very funny," Tsubasa sighed. "The teacups are a nice touch, but it's just too out of left field."

"Well, would you prefer it turn into something tremendous with sharp teeth and fire breathing capabilities?" Yu hissed under his breath as he drew up his shield.

The shape shifting blob suddenly quivered and turned itself into a four-tier wedding cake with

Butter cream icing and candy pastilles.

Yu screamed in horror and chucked his entire shield at it, knocking the creature down and off the platform to the floor below them.

"Now see, that was funny," Tsubasa remarked between bursts of laughter. "By now the cake has become a running joke at the expense of poor Yu, you see. It will remain funny as many times as it happens."

"It will NOT!" Yu roared, calling his shield back to his hand and trembling as he brushed strings of sweat-soaked hair from his eyes.

"Really, yes it will," Tsubasa grinned.

"Not as funny as it'll be when I rip every one of those braids out of your thick skull and strangle you with them!" Yu glared at him.

"Guys!," Madoka cut in, gesturing to the other side of the platform where a tremendous Technicolor hand grasped the edge as though to pull the creature it belonged to back up. "Could we perhaps save this for another time?"

A primal scream echoed across the tower and the blob pulled itself up onto the platform, now in the shape of noted Canadian songstress Celine Dion. The creature's growling became a highoctave warbling as she burst into song.

"WHEN I TOUCH YOU LIKE THIS! AND I HOLD YOU LIKE THAT! IT'S SO HARD TO BELIEVE BUT IT'S AAAAALL COMING BAAACK TO ME NOOOOOOOW!"

She was interrupted a moment later by hysterical laughter from her five Blader opponents.

"Now THAT is funny," Masamune clapped his hands in mirth. "That song is the pinnacle of melodramatic hilarity."

"Mmph, we are in agreement there, my friend," Tsubasa chuckled and shook his head.

"If she had sung the song from Titanic we might really be in trouble," Gingka added.

It took a moment for the three of them to calm themselves down, and by that point Celine had become a fearsome colossus with a microphone-turned spiked club in one hand and the other hand forming into sharp claws ripe for the impaling.

"Right," Tsubasa's voice dropped suddenly. "Let's do this. Diversionary Tactic Four followed by Combined Attack Forty-Five, finishing with a triple combination if it comes to that. Prioritizing offense with rising defense should it fail. Sound good?"

"Golden," Masamune nodded.

"And keep an eye out for the key," Gingka reminded them.

Then they broke into formation.

Tsubasa suddenly threw his hands to the side and he rose into the air, six lances encircling him in a protective barrier of wind and sharp pointy things as he glided up to meet the colossus face-to face.

It growled ferociously and took a few swings at him, all of which he deflected or dodged, starting to send his lances out one by one to swipe at its face or hands.

Meanwhile, down on the ground and out of the creature's sight thanks to Tsubasa, Gingka, Yu and

Masamune were collaborating on what looked to be a powerful attack, a spinning and glowing orb of brown and blue magic swirling together and growing bigger and bigger, rising up into the air and slowly taking a physical shape.

"Tsubasa, bring it this way!" Gingka yelled.

Tsubasa nodded and flew off to one side. The colossus lunged after him and ran nearly face-first into the developing attack.

"And NOW!" Yu dropped his hands and Gingka did the same. Their joint attack suddenly exploded, showering onto the colossus like a party popper, if said party popper was full of two-ton boulders and six thousand pounds of snow and ice, an impressive avalanche that knocked the colossus down to the ground and buried it.

By the time Tsubasa landed back on the platform, Gingka was hurriedly entombing the icy mound, monster and all, in a thick layer of the hardest stone he could summon.

"Very nice work, guys," Tsubasa commented, flipping his braids back over his shoulder.

"Thank you," Yu tossed his head slightly and brushed himself off. "The key, Gingkie?"

Gingka kneeled and placed one hand on the stone, a moment later drawing it away with the key in hand. "Right here."

"That was almost too easy," Tsubasa glanced over at the mound that had been their enemy, eagles bristling with concern.

"Please don't say something amusingly ironic about it bouncing back with twice the power and invulnerability—because you know that it will happen exactly as you say just for laughs," Masamune warned him.

"Let's just get in the elevator and get on with it," Madoka urged them, already putting the key into the keyhole and turning it to restart the elevator. "According to the guidebook the Seme's chambers ought to be right above us."

"The sooner we deal with this Seme the sooner we can get out of this hellhole and its idiotic attempts at being funny," Masamune groaned, shoving the elevator door open and stepping inside.

The doors closed and the elevator began its slow ascent up to the top of the tower…

**~X~**

Where Kyoyo, head wrapped in tinfoil and wielding a broom handle, was rocking out hardcore.

"SHOOTIN' AT THE WALLS OF HEARTACHE, BANG BANG! I am… The Warrior!" he howled.

"And why am I not surprised it's Kyoya's Seme?" Tsubasa said drolly.

"I saw that coming a mile away," Masamune sighed.

"Kyoya!" Gingka shouted to get the oddball's attention, tightening his hand around Pegasus. "We've come to take you back where you belong!"

"They're coming to take me away—HA HA! HO HO! HEE HEE! To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're coming to take me AWAAAAY!" Kyoyo didn't seem to have heard them come in, and it wasn't until he saw the three of them standing in the doorway of his equally spastic loft that he seemed to have a problem. "Ah! YOU! Mr. Yagel warned me about you!"

"We want to make this nice and quick, Kyoya-whatever-you're-calling-yourself," Tsubasa informed him, drawing one of his lances out of the air and pointing it at him. "Just hold still and we'll have you in the Tupperware with the others in no time."

"Mmmm… I dun wanna go in the Tupperware," Kyoyo whined, scratching his hair beneath his tinfoil helmet. "It smells like spaghetti in there and I'm allergic to OREGON."

"You aren't being given a choice, I'm afraid," Yu held his shield up defensively, preparing to strike.

"Aw NO! Mommy told me bout the BAD MEN! I'm not-" Kyoyo drifted off slowly, and then suddenly whipped his attention to the floor. "OH MY GOD!"

The five Bladers leapt at least a foot back all of a sudden, when Kyoyo fell to his knees on the ground and grabbed something.

"I FOUND A BOWL! Good for ME!" he shrieked, pointing with glee at the Hello Kitty patterned pink bowl he'd just discovered.

"Congratulations," Tsubasa rolled his eyes. "Now stand up and fight, or stay there and we'll take care of you."

Something wicked suddenly glinted in Kyoyo's eyes. He grinned and placed the bowl on his head, leaping up to his feet and backing up towards a control panel at the far end of the room. "I'm afraid, Mr. Bond, that your taking care of will not be occurring this evening! Bwahah!"

He snapped his fingers before turning to rapidly punch commands into the control panel.

"STELLAAAAA! KILL THEM!"

Francesca the Gutless and her (?) cronies appeared in short puffs of smoke, and she turned on Kyoyo growling indignantly.

"What? Oh, what's that? You're going to Las Vegas to marry the toilet and you can't do it unless you get an annulment from Lawrence Fishburne?" Kyoyo gasped.

"GRRR!"

"Oh! I'm very well aware your name is Francesca, darling," he purred in response. "Now destroy the intruders cuz I CAN'T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANYMOOORE! I'VE FORGOTTEN

WHAT I STARTED FIGHTIN' FOOOOOOR! And if I have to crawl upon the floor or come crashin' through your door, BABY I CAN'T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANYMOOOORE!"

Francesca rolled her eyes and gestured towards the three intruders. Her Growling Gutless companions let out long grunts and prepared their attack.

"I feel stupider for having witnessed that," Masamune commented.

"You're not the only one," Tsubasa groaned.

"EGADS!" Kyoyo suddenly screamed, glancing out the window. "I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME! The sun is almost setting!"

Though our five heroes would have loved to know exactly what Kyoyo meant by that (and would wish they had known sooner when the time finally came for them to discover it), they were immediately distracted by the onslaught of growling Gutless that began pouring in from smoky portals on all sides of the room, charging at them with gummy claws and jaws and roars ablaze with fury.

Unfortunately for Kyoyo and Francesca, the growling Gutless were a terribly weak little species and it didn't take much work at all for GGG to smash through their illogical ranks in a minimal amount of time, leaving nothing but the turtle sandbox standing between Kyoyo and his impending doom.

Francesca, however, survived because she had a name and was therefore loved by all.

"Ah… ah… POTATO!" Kyoyo yelled, pointing across the room.

"That's not going to work, Tategami," Gingka said seriously, narrowing his eyes at the freakish incarnation of their comrade. "Now hold still and we'll make it quick."

"YOU'RE TOO LATE!" Kyoyo did not sound as obnoxiously random as he had a moment ago, his voice laced with poison as he extended an accusatory finger at the three of them. "I am destroying this tower with you inside of it! You'll be CRUSHED TO DEATH beneath TONS of RAINBOW-COLORED STEEL! You'll go CRASHING through the sky of Vacillation Heights, screaming in a GIANT FIREBALL until it EXPLODES upon impact and ALL THREE OF YOU DIE INSTANTLY! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!"

Sure enough, a large digital clock display lit up on top of the control panel, giving the Bladers only three minutes to get their business done with and get out of the tower. The three of them looked decidedly unconcerned about this. They could, after all, teleport.

"One minor problem," Masamune spoke up icily, "You're in the tower too. You'll die along with us."

"… Oh, right!" Kyoyo burst out giggling. "Heheehee, I'm such a SQUISHBRAIN! Oh well! Only one thing to do now!"

"Give up?" Gingka suggested.

"No! PRESS THE MAGIC BUTTON!" Kyoyo howled with laughter and poked himself in what would have been his navel.

Gan Gan Galaxy stared, un amused.

"Oh, or I could press this one," Kyoyo reached over to the control panel and pressed a second

"magic button", which shot a bright light out of a small spotlight and engulfed Kyoyo in what appeared to be a tractor beam. "HAHA YOU SUCKERS! I AM TELEPORTING OVER TO STAY WITH MY GOOD TEAM WILD GANG AND NOW YOU FIVE WILL DIE!"

Gingka lunged to try and keep him from escaping, but Kyoyo's body already appeared to have been phased out by the teleporter and he went right through. He quickly recovered back to his feet in time to see Kyoyo disappear from the room with ominous final words.

"HAVE FUN AFTER DARK, POODLEPANTS! BWAHAHAHAHAHAA!"

"Dammit! We lost him!" Tsubasa growled furiously.

"He'll be at the other tower with, apparently, Nile, Benkei, and Demure's Semes," Madoka said quickly, "But we've more pressing matters, such as escaping from this tower."

"What did he mean by 'after dark'?" Gingka posed an eerie question.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Masamune insisted. "Let's get out of here!"

The five of them vanished into their own dark portals, leaving the Rainbow Tower to explode back into the shiny rainbow glitter it had apparently been born from.

**~X~**

In the second darkest tower in Fandom Fight Beyblade, now hovering just on the edge of the city limits of Vacillation Heights, Hudson was preparing for nightfall.

The darkness of the night was the only time he felt his spirit could properly flourish. He felt whole at night, when the world of Vacillation Heights was under his control.

The Dark Tower but Not So Dark as That Other Tower Tower was hovering carefully just along the border of the shadow of night, just out of reach of the setting sun's light. An observant eye could make out the landscape changing drastically as the light drained away and the shadow overtook it. Hell, an unobservant eye probably would have noticed it too.

Hudson adjusted the oversized robes covering his black fishnet tank top and baggy pants with straps belting the legs together in six different places. His chains jangled and his spiked collar looked divine as the light drained away outside. A slow, evil grin crossed his face as the land twisted under cover of night.

And suddenly a scream echoed throughout the Almost Darkest Tower.

"LUUUUCYYYY! I'M HOOOOOOOOOOOME!"

Hudson's face sank immensely and you could almost hear his emo little spirit being crushed beneath the boot heel of his damn annoying comrade-in-arms spending the night.

"ANNND LOOOK WHOO'S HEEEREEE!" announced a new seme in the scene.

A rather chubby looking purple haired man hopped into the room gleaming with a slight cheesy spastic personality as Kyoyo. He wore a biker's headband that completely covered his purple haired head, along with a shirt that sported crazy pics of the nickelodeon star that was lovingly named for his Bey, Drake Bell.

Styling in his boyish outfit, Becky Hanway excitedly jumped forward, hugging Kyoyo in circles and pecking his lips on the gummy bear lover's cheeks before saying, "Kyoyo! Ma man! What's up?"

He in return gave out a childish laugh and happily skipped towards the jacket hanger to hang up his multi colored gummy bear coat made of pure waxed artificial coating to give out that smooth silly look to it. "Oh, nothing. I was happily taking a bath in my turtle shaped sandbox before meeting up with Francesca and her growling cronies."

"Sounds good because here comes your favourite snack!" Becky giggled into one hand as he gestured his other hand towards the dining door.

Kicking the door in reply, Dumber entered in with 4 plates of steaming 'whatever that was under the lid.'

"Did someone say snacks!? I made them!" he cheered while revealing 'not so yummy' looking chicken shaped gummy marshmallows, all of them hissing with vaporized steam that snaked up skyward. "Dig in!"

"Oh! Ho, Ho! Yeah!" Becky instantly roared as he proceeded to grab a handful with his monstrous paw and devourer one plate in just 3.2 milli seconds. "B-B-B-Bell! That was too good!"

Licking his lips, he glanced over at Kyoyo who was also done in seconds. Giving out a small burp and using a small sharpened pencil to pick his rather muti colored teeth, he glanced around the room then at one remaining plate in confusion.

"Call in Hudson. He'd better enjoy this." Dumber smiled spastically as he gobbled up the rest of his food down in seconds.

Kyoyo volunteered to do it.

"OHHHHHHHH! HUDSSSEYYYY!"

Either blocking out his name calls with puffy ear muffs or blasting out some dark depressing My Chemical Romance songs, Hudson, for the gothic emo Egyptian teen that he was, HATED company with his team. Wild Bang, was it? Pff. Forget it. But as long as he stayed locked up in his room for eternity, it was much better than listening to the obnoxious lion, that's for sure.

"Hudsey!" that voice was there again.

Covering his earmuffs more tighter with his hands, he lay down fetal position on his bed, ignoring the hard plastic CD cases of dark wiccan music being crushed under his small weight.

There came the final knock on his door. A sign that either he could die a depressing death or he could scream with terrible rage by becoming a monster and destroy everything that was in his sight, possibly with his annoying shitty teammates for sure.

"Go away." He mumbled softly as he changed position and switched with a button on his remote control to dark raging goth music.

"AWWWW? Why, Hudsey? Don't you wanna be happy with the rest of my silly friends?" Kyoyo whined as he placed his back against the door and started crying like a baby.

The sound of his crying still didn't make Hudson wanna leave his brooding place known as a bed.

"Kyoyo! What's taking you so long?" Becky called randomly as he climbed the stairs to find him lying on the hallway ground, crying out wads of Crayon colored tears that almost flooded the narrow space and almost poked Becky's shoe.

"Yikes, what happened man?" he softly asked as he looked down at his baby friend then at the entrance to Hudson's room which was presumably known as the doors of death.

Kyoyo blew his nose through a tissue that almost instantly turned into flying rainbows and monkeys giving out painful stabs at themselves, too much for both Kyoyo's feelings and himself to experience through. He then rather stood up too quickly and squared up on his friend, clutching his shirt in despair like it was the worst thing to happen.

"Hudson's in his brooding thingy again! I can't see him like this! This world is meant to be happy, not sad! I repeat! Happy! HAPPY!"

Becky just stared at him with few blinks of confusion. Then he half-heartedly patted Kyoyo on the back who was now pouting in small sadness.

"Aw, it's okay buddy! I'm sure there's a way to cheer him up. We just have to work together in order to bring him back to our team, right?"

He sniffed with hard understanding, "Yeah, you're right."

"Okay, now watch how Mr. Bell does it!" Becky stood up proudly and was beginning to crack his knuckles in readiness and preparation. Giving out a hard exhale, he politely and slowly knocked the door in a rather calm way.

"Oh Hudson? It's me Becky."

"Silly idiot, I think he's ignoring you." Kyoyo whispered nervously.

"Shhh." Becky shushed, then faced the door again, widening his elephant ears to listen for the rejection of the offer of whatever the Bell blader wanted from him. "C'mon, Hudson. Were getting a get together in the living room. Besides, your chicken shaped gummy marshmallows are getting cold. I don't want you to miss out. I-…"

Instantly, Nile's seme appeared right in front of him, the door wide opened at an unusual timing.

Oh, shoot. I forgot to describe Hudson for you.

His emo hair that usually represented two colors of blazing orange sun and the dark brown color of the stony pyramids on his normal blader self, was now dyed intense black obsidian blue, plus his signature red line markings of Horus that teared down from his eyes in a static position, was now deep black as if he was crying in all eternity of his life. Not to mention a small Mano Curnoto tattoo marked his left cheek that symbolized the on going revolutionary culture of emo bands. His white traditional scarf was now replaced with a more darkly manner of purple glittered pentacles, glistening in the harsh evil sunlight stamped on the black cotton fabric of the winter accessory. His yellow jacket and his green thingy (Oh gods, I don't what the hell that is. Let me go check the Bey wiki for a sec… hold on. Okay got it.) a long green shirt actually, was now replaced with a long black cloak (somewhat like the Organization's, but different.)

One long silver chain with five pendants running across his chest. The first one was a silver Triquetra, then a silver pentacle. The other two chains were the about the same level as the first two (athame and eye of Horus.) But the greatest pendant that stood out forth of all the others was the great and majestic Horus the avenger, a pendant that maybe Nile himself couldn't afford even though he comes from the poorest part of Egypt. :P

Finally his ever beige pants now turned into gothic jeans (hidden from view underneath the cloak he was now wearing.) and last but not least, black shoes.

Those dark green eyes now drilled into Becky's as he softly growled in an aggressive manner of being bothered too constantly, "What?"

Kyoyo covered his eyes, too afraid of what Hudson had just said right there. Becky kept his cool as he exhaled quickly and bravely said, "Uh, were inviting you to dinner, that's all. Heh."

Hudson blinked then thought about it, "Okay, I'll come."

Becky and Kyoyo then instantly high fived each other in excitement as if they had just achieved their dark gothic friend into doing something that's not very disturbing at all. (At least to them.)

**~X~**

Team Gan Gan Galaxy had observant eyes. Well, all except Yu, of course. They had landed somewhere in the middle of the central park area, and from the hill in the center of the park they could see shadows overtaking the land in the distance, and the landscape twisting around the darkness.

"What in the name of Eagle is going on?" Tsubasa said in a voice that held the hint of distant dread.

"I don't know," Masamune stared at the approaching wall of shadows, "But I don't like it at all."

"Guys?," Gingka diverted their attention over a large tree that turned out not to be a large tree, but to be the signpost of the immense VACILLATION HEIGHTS sign they had seen from a distance earlier. For the first time they could make out a small plaque on the bottom part of the signpost, inscribed with small, scribbly writing.

The five of them rushed over to the sign and leaned forward to read it as the light around them faded.

_WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF VACILLATION HEIGHTS._

_Your Esteemed Overlords As Assigned by the Grand Master Fangirl, Kyoyo Tartargummybears, Hudson, and the rest of Team Wild Gang extend to you a warm handshake of welcome and remind you that MINDLESS CONFORMITY is our chiefly regarded system of operation here!_

_We hope you will enjoy your stay!_

_Due to labor disputes and the fact that one of Your Esteemed Overlords is too stupid to tie his own shoes, leadership of this world will be divided into two preset periods of time, DAY and NIGHT._

_During the DAY you will be lorded over by Your Esteemed Overlord Kyoyo and his Reverence For All Things Random and Cracky._

_During the NIGHT you will be lorded over by Your Esteemed Overlord Hudson and his Reverence For All Things Dark and Angsty._

_To ease the objection and frustration that this may cause in you, Our Loving Subjects, we have installed a mechanism that will put you and the landscape both in the proper mindset for your Current Esteemed Overlord._

_Mechanism will take effect every twelve hours at precisely 6:00 and will be mostly painless._

_Any complaints about the Mechanism process shall be discussed with Hudson and Kyoyo and followed by your immediate torturous death. Have A Wonderful Day/Horrible and Depressing Night!*_

Once all five bladers had backed away from the sign and regarded each other with concerned glances, Tsubasa was finally the first to speak.

"So let me get this straight," he said in a dead sort of voice, "When darkness washes over us, we're going to be brainwashed into mindlessly depressed and whiny versions of ourselves."

"Sounds about right," Masmaune replied in an equally lifeless tone.

"But only until daybreak. At daybreak we will turn into insane random 'crack' beings like the rest of the pathetic souls we have been encountering all day," Tsubasa continued, still without a trace of life in his voice.

"I think that's the gist of it," Yu said.

"Oh hell," Gingka groaned succinctly.

"Now, now," Tsubasa said, ushering for the other four to follow him as he made a beeline east to put some distance between them and their impending angsty brainwashing in the wave of shadow.

"There must be some way out of this…"

"I'm not willing to count on thinking of something later!" Yu snapped, "We've got to put a stop to this nonsense before we end up trapped on this world forever!"

"Strong minds, Yu," Gingka encouraged him, "We have to stay calm and remain strong! If we panic we'll be lost—we've just got to keep clear heads about this…"

They turned to watch the trees across the park from them losing all trace of color except drab, lifeless gray. The branches drooped, the leaves fell and the trees were coating in a thick layer of sudden rain. The landscape touched by shadow was dead, barren and depressing, with run-down buildings and miserable-looking inhabitants freezing to death on the street corners and wrapped in ragged cloaks. It looked like somebody had driven through with a boombox blasting "Helena".

Even the grass was depressed (and/or annoyed) to death.

"Keep focused on the objective!" Madoka told them, still inching back and away from the advancing darkness. "We must get inside that tower and kill the Semes and get off of this world. We're going to restore the rest of the bladers we know. Keep your minds clear and strong, we can fight this. We're going to finish this!"

"It's getting closer," Tsubasa narrowed his eyes, his sideburns on high alert.

"We can't outrun it," Masamune groaned, "We haven't time to call the ship."

"Keep focused!" Madoka repeated. "Remember, we've got to keep focused! What matters is what we have to do and not what we feel— Everybody brace yourselves…"

And they were suddenly overtaken by the wall of shadow, darkening and killing the grass beneath their feet and the trees alongside them. Angsty, angsty trees. The colors vanished into grays, browns and cold blacks, the rainbow water in the fountains turned scummy, the flowers died and the world was left a depressing shade of its former self, run-down and desolate, a rhapsody for the power of humanity's dreams and the utter failure of all dreams to take off, instead crashing to the ground like a five ounce swallow laden with a five pound coconut and leaving nothing but whining angst in their wake.

**~X~**

In the darkest tower in Fandom Fight Beyblade, Jinga stirred slightly in his dream.

An attractive woman had just lost her bikini top.

The corners of his mouth curled into a dazed smile as he slept, securely bolted down to a slab in the dankest corner in the deepest room of the darkest tower in Fandom Fight Beyblade.

**Whuh oh! Cliffhanger!**

**Haha, in case you guys couldn't tell, this chapter covers a topic that is rather dear to my heart… Also I chose to do a dual world here because I didn't think I'd have enough fodder to cruelly mock both angstfic and crackfic in four separate chapters.**

**So I've crammed them both together in a monstrous mishmash of mockery.**

**Alliteration is fun! HURRAH!**

**Ah yes, and Cheese is and always will be INSPIRED randomness. Apple juice boxes to Gext and Raina, who checked over the chapter to make sure I wasn't babbling like a twit.**

**Also have you ever seen that "The Warrior" music video? Oh my God, it's CREEPY.**

**Stay tuned for chapter 9!**


	10. Crawling in my Skin

**Woot! Chappie 9! Here I come! Now, once I get this done (Yes, it's still with Team Wild Gang! XD) I can't wait to move on to the next world…. Which is the Chinese Store with Team Damn Hu Zhang! XD**

**Enjoy! :D**

When we last left our heroes at the suspenseful, cliffhanger ending to chapter eight, they had just been swept over by an evil wave of darkness that would, according to the laws of the world, sweep over them and transform their every happy, angry, annoyed or ambivalent feeling into Evangelion ™ Brand 100% Pure Angst, No Artificial Colors.

This sounds like quite a dangerous situation. If Gan Gan Galaxy were busy angsting heavily about their own problems, how would they ever find the strength to hunt down Nile and Kyoya's Semes, then travel onwards on their journey to destroy the Semes and liberate Fandom Fight Beyblade and restore the rest of the bladers back to its proper state? Would they be trapped here in Vacillation Heights for the rest of their miserable unlives, wandering the streets sobbing and crying and whining things like "You develop a broken heart, but you're born with a broken soul"? Would Tsubasa comb his braids over his eyes and piece his ears with a safety pin? Would Masamune dye his hair black and wear makeup? Would Gingka cut holes in the knees of his pants and write lame poetry? Would Yu Tendo ever food color his ice cream obsidian blue or Madoka go bad girl upon being a witch?

Those of you who are more studious may have taken the gap between chapters to write out an indepth research paper regarding the effect of evil worldly angst-waves on Nobodies, describing instead of the above scenario your own twisted reality in which somehow this would wipe their personalities completely, leaving them empty and open to corruption into the master plan of the Grand Master Fangirl and her Seme pawns of Orgy IX.

Some of you may have even lay awake at night, wondering what would become of the three

Nobodies in this much-alluded to chapter nine, fraught with worry.

Unfortunately for all of you, you have forgotten that Nobodies don't have hearts. Therefore they are not capable of feeling emotions, and therefore there is nothing for an evil worldly angst-wave to wipe out and transform into soul-killing angst.

"That's a relief," Gingka sighed, as our three heroes picked themselves up off the ground, none the worse for wear, to examine their new surroundings.

What had before been an obnoxiously colorful wackyland where anything could happen had become a desolate wasteland, a landscape of grays, browns, blacks and more grays. Plants and trees and cliffhangers lay dried up and dead in the brown fields and the buildings were run down with boarded-up windows and cracked doors swinging on creaky hinges. Beings that had before been colorful llamas, silly creatures on scooters and happy little elves frolicking gaily had become pale, weak, sickly shades of their former selves, leaning in the alleys and occasionally playing melancholy tunes on squeaky harmonicas.

And ushering in the woe, floating high above them in the air, was the second darkest tower in all of Fandom Fight Beyblade.

"One tower down, and one to go," Tsubasa grumbled, his braids flicking in the cold wind as the five of them surveyed the approaching citadel.

"Sure enough, two Semes are residing in that tower," Madoka told them, checking the signal in the back of the world guidebook. "Kyoya's, and as he mentioned, Nile's."

"Look at it this way," Gingka said optimistically, "Nothing can be worse than what we encountered back in chapter seven."

"What you encountered?" Masamune grumbled. "Pardon if I fail to sympathize with you two for the horrors you endured. I, on the other hand, I'm never going to hear the end of mine."

"Nonsense, Masamune. It can't stay funny forever," Tsubasa assured him.

"It's become a running joke!" Masamune snapped. "It's ensured to be popping up constantly at least until the end of the story. And then darkness forbid some clever little nitwits will start referencing it in their own invocations of me! 'Masamune is phobic at tea party!' 'Masamune vs. The Bundt!' 'Masamune screams at hoard of attacking cup… cup…' Ugh, I can't even say it!"

"Now really isn't the time, Masamune," Gingka sighed.

"We're going to encounter the author sometime, I just know it," Masmaune said, mostly to himself.

"And when we do, I am going to beat her senseless."

**~X~**

Speaking of beating people senseless, Hudson could honestly sympathize with Masamune's violent urges.

At the moment, he was doing his best to finish his evening brooding, an event that took place from six o'clock to six-thirty every night without fail. It was absolutely vital to the rest of his schedule that the evening brooding take place precisely at six o'clock with no interruptions—otherwise he would not have time for his six-thirty angsting, his seven o'clock pissing and moaning, his half-hour soak in the tub (in the dark, with black candles and sex on the beach incense) at seven-thirty, House at eight o'clock and then a three hour bout of feeling sorry for himself.

And it was very difficult to finish your evening brooding when your Evanescence CD is being constantly interrupted by screeching, crashing and banging noises coming from the direction of your boudoir.

"Kyoyo!" Hudson yelled irritably, rubbing his mascara-stained tears off his face just as they'd gotten the way he liked them.

"YEEES-A!" his colleague answered back from the other room, accompanied by the sound of Hudson's mattress snapping in half.

"I told you to stay out of my boudoir!"

"… OKAAAAAY."

With the sound of his precious sarcastic Hot Topic t-shirt collection scattering out of its velvet-lined drawer and into the ceiling fan, Hudson placed a hand to his forehead.

"That means get OUT!"

"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

wwwwuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" poured forth from Kyoyo's throat, and was quickly labeled the whiniest sound ever known to man, except for anything by the band Linkin Park. He slumped out of the room, tattoos of kittens drawn in black eyeliner smudged all over him and his head shoved through the armhole of Hudson's favorite and cleverest shirt.

"You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you're all the same." Oh, the mirth of the irony in that garment.

"And get your disgusting body away from my things!" Hudson hissed, pointing a black nail-polished finger at him. "That eyeliner is EXPENSIVE! Agh! You just don't UNDERSTAND ME!"

Kyoyo tilted his head in fascination as Hudson resumed his brooding, crumpling in on himself and curling into the fetal position on the floor. He probably would have cut his wrists too, if the author thought wrist-cutting was an appropriate feature in any context in any sort of fanfic.

For her purposes, she will replace the action of cutting ones' wrists with the action of gorging oneself on a half pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream—an activity that is soothing, safe and delicious.

"Hexywexymexytexy?" Kyoyo said curiously, leaning down over Hudson's shoulder.

"Go away. I'm releasing my pain," Hudson growled.

"Why?"

"Because I want to."

"Why?"

"Because it eases the pain of my aching soul."

"Why?"

"Because it expresses my inner anguish."

"Why?"

"Because it allows me to get out the feelings I am bottling up inside myself that would otherwise rot me to the core… though they are halfway there."

"Why?"

"Because I haven't been brooding enough.

"Why?"

"Because," Hudson growled between clenched teeth, "I have to put up. With you."

"..."

"Whyyyy?"

"Because I pulled the worst lot in our entire team and they all hate me."

"Why?"

"Because they don't understand me."

"Who?"

"The rest of our team."

"What?"

"Don't understand me."

"Why?"

"Because they just don't, okay?"

"Wow I really, really love all the lighting effects you've got going on in here— they balance well with the texture of the west side of the room and really serve to enhance the feng shui," Kyoyo commented.

"Stop talking. I can't hear my brooding music," Hudson growled again behind a mouthful of walnuts and fudge chunks.

"YOU CRIED I'D WIPE AWAY ALL OF YOUR TEARS! WHEN YOU SCREAMED I'D

FIGHT AWAY AAAAALL OF YOUR—"

Kyoyo eyed the stereo on the end table behind his mopey comrade and tilted his head at it quizzically. Sure enough, Amy Lee was supplying enough angst for several people, surely enough to keep Hudson happily brooding for hours and hours. Well, if happily brooding is even possible, that is. Curiously, he reached over and pressed a shiny button, and-

"—ALL THESE MIXED EMOTIONS WE KEEP LOCKED AWAY LIKE STOLEN PEEAAAARLS! STOLEN PEARL DEVOTIONS WE KEEP LOCKED- "

Hudson screamed and leapt to his feet, flailing wildly until he knocked the stereo to the ground and sent the CD rattling across the floor. Then he glared up at Kyoyo with an expression of pure, straight loathing.

There were a few uneasy seconds of silence before Kyoyo's giggling broke its way into the conversation.

"Hudson listens to Savage Garden?" even Kyoyo understood the implications of such a thing, stifling hysterical giggles behind his hand and making loud snorting noises.

"I do NOT!" Hudson snapped. "Shut up! You don't get me! You wouldn't understand even if I DID listen to them! And I DON'T! I've never even heard that song!"

"Suuuuuuure," Kyoyo laughed, slapping his knees in mirth. "And I'm Ron Burgundy!"

There was an indignant gasping sound as Hudson stared in torment at his colleague, very abruptly knocking over the end table and screeching at the top of his lungs.

"Okay!" Kyoyo replied.

"I'M NOOOOT OKAAAY! I don't belong on this disgusting world with your disgusting sunshine and flowers and colors and… and…" Hudson screamed, looking close to ripping his gelled-up hair out. Then he shoved a huge spoonful of ice cream in his mouth and his eyes turned red, black-stained tears starting to appear at the corner of his eyes. "MMFPFGHGHFFMGMHMHMFGHMMM!"

"Uh huh… uh huh… uh huh…" Kyoyo nodded with each syllable as though taking careful notes in his head.

"MGMPGHGHGGHGMG—the youngest and everybody ALWAYS picks on me and the

MEAN GIRLS AT SCHOOL USED TO GIVE ME SWIRLIES in the LADIES BATHROOM and I- MMGPGHGGHGHHHHMM… MMM... OH GOD THAT'S GOOD…"

"There there now. Let it all out," Kyoyo gave him a friendly pat on the back and rest his arm over his shoulder.

"HOW DO THEY GET IT SO BANANA? MMMM GOD! But NOBODY understands me! And I'm not even a NOBODY we're SEMES so we don't have HEARTS a-and we don't have BRAINS and LUNGS and LIVERS and my SOUL ACHES FOR A LIVER!"

"Liver let die," Kyoyo sighed sadly.

"AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF—" Hudson shrieked dramatically, spraying droplets of melted ice cream from his mouth in his tantrum. "I HAVE TO SHARE THE WORLD WITH YOU, YOU DISGUSTING SOCKET-LICKING MARKER-EATING CROSS-EYED BUFFOON!"

"Hey, can I have some gummy bears?" Kyoyo asked

That did it.

With a melodramatic scream of torture and rage and pain from the very depths of his broken soul, the soul in which his rage and misery had festered and fermented for all of his short Seme life, so much angst and torment he could no longer hold it in, like the black raven escaping from the blood red cage into which it has been locked by the oppressive bone white hands of the dark shadowy voice in his head coming in dreams to crush the wishes of the night beneath the wicked heel of the bone reaper's fleshcraving bloodlust of the vampiric midnight etc, etc, the words burst forth in a cry of, "GET OUT! NOW! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTANDAAGGGH!"

Then the emotional Seme burst into tears and ran screaming to his boudoir, slamming the door behind him with the final insult, an explosive string of curses and a concluding note of "I HATE YOU!"

Kyoyo, meanwhile, picked up the CD off the floor, examined it closely, and then licked all the dust off of it. Then he ran off to find someone who'd be interested in the size of the booger he'd just found hanging from his lip.

**~X~**

"Well," Masamune said, eyeing the shrine to Jhonen Vasquez that greeted the five as they made their way into the entrance hallway of the Second Darkest Tower. "This looks to be a painful endeavor."

"Oh, I don't know," Gingka replied, "The way things are looking, this tower could actually turn out to be more humorous than the last one."

"Particularly if we run into any cake," Tsubasa said snidely.

"That was uncalled for."

The interior of the Second Darkest Tower looked like a particularly disheveled Hot Topic outlet— not that it's very difficult to find those, mind you. It was difficult to see the steel inner walls behind the shrouds of punk band posters, Emily the Strange merchandise and Green Day throw pillows that had been tacked to the walls with glow in the dark neon black light pushpins. The stairs wound up and up and up along the outside of the tower, tracing around inner platforms as they had in the Rainbow Tower. These platforms, however, instead of decorated with colorful creatures and craziness, stood as shrines to the inner pain of a whiny preteen feeling the weight of the whole world on his scrawny, prepubescent shoulders.

Our heroes reached the top floor of the tower and the door that sealed the way into the chambers of Hudson without much difficulty. But…

"The door's locked," Gingka announced, testing the handle. "And there's no sign of a keyhole."

"There is a rather large indentation in the door up here," Tsubasa said, tracing around the circular dent with a finger. "Perhaps this activates the locking mechanism?"

"Oh for the love of nothing," Masamune groaned.

"What's that about?" Gingka asked.

"Don't you realize what this means?" Masamune rolled his eyes in utter frustration. "A large indentation in the door can only mean one thing—there's got to be something shaped like that around here that we use as a key."

"So?" Yu raised an eyebrow.

"So of course, that object is going to be something absolutely nonsensical, like a stained glass toilet brush or some kind of giant holy insignia," Masamune continued. "And of course, this object is not going to be anywhere nearby. Oh no. It's going to be locked up on the complete other end of the tower, behind six other locked doors, also sealed by ridiculously complicated keys and puzzles. Maybe even pieces of keys and puzzles, which we will have to run off and fetch in the most ludicrous of places before we can even think about getting out of here."

"You're such a pessimist, Masamune," Tsubasa chuckled. "We are members of Team Gan Gan Galaxy. We're prepared for anything. What could possibly happen to keep us from opening this door within the next two minutes?"

"I'll tell you what," Masamune snapped. "We're only seven pages into the chapter, that's what. And she is going to stretch it out as long as she possibly can."

"There's an inscription on the wall here," Gingka pointed out to something scribbled in what appeared to be blood red nail polish—actually magic marker. "It says 'To the depths of the basement go those who do not hold the Red Basin'."

"And what in the worlds is the Red Basin?" Tsubasa asked.

His query fell on deaf ears, however, as Masamune, Gingka and the rest of GGG were currently tumbling down six stories through a trap door that had opened precisely as Tsubasa had spoken. Conveniently enough, Tsubasa was also a victim of this trap door.

He stared at the narrative in disbelief. "'Conveniently'?"

"Where exactly are we falling?" Masamune yelled, brushing his hair out of his face as they fell.

"I don't know, but it's approaching quickly," Gingka said. "A Dramatic Landing, guys?"

"Let's."

One improbable slow-falling swooshy-coat and hair dramatic landing on their feet later, our heroes found themselves deep in the basement of the Second Darkest Tower.

"Wait a minute," Tsubasa complained, "This tower is floating in midair. A basement would require some kind of subterranean construction. How in the hell are we suddenly in a basement?"

"I think the more important question is how we get back up," Gingka mused, staring up at the last of the light from above as the tunnel sealed itself.

"How annoying," Masamune sighed. "Tell me again, what does this have to do with angst?"

"I hesitate to say," Madoka said, as she examined a very psychological mural on the wall. After hours and hours of arguing about Freud on forums and looking up ancient Babylonian mythology and translating the hieroglyphics, its meaning basically amounted to "Wah wah, nobody understands me".

The impossible basement chamber was dark, lit only by a few sex on the beach scented candles shaped like Foamy the Squirrel placed in odd corners of the room. The five bladers split up and began to hunt for a means to escape.

"I seem to have found an old piece of parchment," Tsubasa announced.

"I found half of a squeezed lemon," Yu said.

"I've got a 100-watt lightbulb stuck in a broken Tiffany lamp," Madoka added.

"Here is a bit of broken wire," Tsubasa held it up between his fingers.

"A pair of pliers," Masamune put them in his pocket.

"A tube of superglue," Gingka carefully made sure the cap was on.

"I've found a book of matches."

"The funnel from an old phonograph."

"A philosophy textbook."

"Season Three of MacGuyver on DVD."

"A Nalgene water bottle full of Goldfish crackers."

"The keys to a 1997 Buick LeSabre with a teddy bear keychain on them."

"A carton of liverwurst."

"Two sticks of butter."

"Britney Spears' Greatest Hits."

"Merciful darkness of Aquila, Gingka!" Tsubasa said quickly, "Throw that away before it kills somebody."

"Now we have a broken CD of Britney Spears' Greatest Hits."

"And a partridge in a pear tree."

"So what shall we do with all this junk?" Masamune asked, scratching his chin in deep thought.

"Isn't it obvious?" Gingka replied.

Thirty seconds later the Pegasus blader tore open a massive hole in the wall with his Bey and they put their findings in a proper waste receptacle.

All except, of course, the partridge in a pear tree. The vase that the tree was planted in had yet another inscription on the side alluding to the mysterious Red Basin.

"'The Dark One comes in the dead of night / Red Basin in hand, he gives you a fright'," Gingka read as they continued down the dark corridor, hopefully on the way to a means up and out of the basement.

"The most frightening thing we've encountered so far is this poetry," Tsubasa snorted, and tucked the Nalgene bottle into his coat (group consensus had decided that you never know when you might get hungry for some Goldfish crackers). "What clever rhymes."

"What is this Red Basin they keep alluding to?" Masamune grumbled, as though trying to work out the problem in his head.

"Whatever it is, we have to find it to unlock the door upstairs," Madoka sighed. "The guidebook isn't picking up any sort of signals to an exit. I suppose we'll just have to keep along this tunnel until we find one."

"Why don't we just blow a hole in the ceiling like we did five paragraphs ago and be done with it?" Masamune asked irritably.

"Nine pages," Tsubasa shrugged. "And plot consistency."

**~X~**

It was seven-thirty.

Unaware for Becky and Dumber to mysteriously wander out the watch limits of the tower and join the party in the Tupperware, Hudson lay on his back in a piping hot bath, drenched in suds and mineral oils and incense fumes with cucumbers over his eyes. Spooky music played in the background as he relaxed, in the midst of yet another particularly rigorous session of brooding.

"So my trap door has been activated," Hudson cackled to no one in particular. "That means that the Dark One has awakened to do my bidding… Hahahahahah."

He lifted one foot out of the water, curling his toes luxuriously and inhaling a deep breath of citrus-ginseng bath beads.

"No one has ever survived against the Dark One!" Granted, no one had ever really tried to survive against the Dark One, but that meant the odds were a hundred percent in Hudson's favor. He knew he did the right thing in creating that Gutless. Yes… the Dark One was truly a masterpiece of you know-lacking technology. So meek and unassuming… until it utterly destroyed you. The Superior would surely congratulate Hudson on his efforts this time.

Oh, and if only the rest of the Orgy IX were still alive to see it… yes… how they would PAY for what they had said to him! What they'd done! How they had laughed in his face and made fun of his…

The crease of a frown formed on Hudson's brow. No… now was not the time for that. At nine

o'clock, after House, he could feel sorry for himself all he liked.

But maybe even that would be put on hold tonight… if the Dark One lived up to expectations.

"The Dark One will rend all my enemies asunder. Even those pesky Nobodies," Hudson smirked, and reclined against the back of the tub luxuriously. "Oh, the mirth I will feel upon seeing their blood-spattered bodies, crushed by the wrath of the Dark One!"

"BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAA!"

"KYOYO!"

"Whaaaaaat?"

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT BATHTIME?"

"It's… um… wait a minute… on the tip of my tummy…"

"BATHTIME IS MY PRIVATE TIME TO BE ALONE WITH MY DARK BROODING EVIL THOUGHTS!"

"Oh, right! HAHAHAA, sorry about that! I got bored looking for the crayons and then there was this hamster and he told me that you had a dream of a night in the deepest love and MY HEART WILL GO OOOON AAAAND OOOOOON!"

"Loving over lady of the falcon Gutless!" Hudson cursed dramatically, pulling off his mask and glaring furiously at his comrade. "What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?"

Kyoyo grinned and burst into song. "I would fly you to the moon and back, if you'll be… if you'll BEEE MY BAABYYYYY!"

"I DON'T LISTEN TO SAVAGE GARDEN!"

"HOO-HAH!"

"GET OUT! TAKE MY UNDERPANTS OFF YOUR HEAD AND GET OUT OF HERE!"

"WHEEE!"

"GO AWAY! YOU'RE A CREEP! I WAS HAVING A GOOD TIME UNTIL YOU

SHOWED UP, DEMYKINS! UUUUGH! GO HAVE SOME COFFEE! WITH CREAM! OR SOMETHING!"

Wibbling, Kyoyo removed Hudson's briefs from his head and sulked out of the room, turning back just before leaving and glaring at his comrade with a pouty face.

"What?" Hudson snapped.

"YOUR INCENSE STINKS AND YOU LISTEN TO STUPID MUSIC!" Kyoyo squealed, then slammed the door and ran off to the closet that had been designated his room.

Or he would have, rather, had he not tripped into the precise trap door that our five heroes had fallen down only pages earlier, tumbling all the way down into the basement with a shriek.

In the shadows, he crept.

He thirsted for the blood of the guilty. He could smell the weight of their crimes crushing their spirits, and it was the scent of their sorrow that drove him out of his slumber and back out to walk the world, a harvester of the wicked and the punisher of the sinful.

He was the one who held them accountable for all they had done. He was justice. He was the one force in this corrupted world that stood only to reap what had been sown.

He watched them from the shadows, driven mad by the scent. He could hear the voice of the

Master urging him on, telling him to follow them, punish them, destroy them.

They had upset Master. A most despicable crime. And now, they would suffer.

Slowly, the creature rose from his rusted, decrepit throne. His joint creaked and shook like those of an old man, like a statue coming to life from centuries of slumber. His bloodstained hands tightened around the cleaver he carried, and his head bobbed back and forth under the weight of his headpiece—a reminder of his own punishment, a symbol of the guilt he was to eliminate.

The cleaver dragged against the floor behind him as he stumbled his first steps, careful steps towards the dim light of the hallway corridor and out of his lair. There, just beyond and into the light, were the three he was to destroy. They were waiting for him… he mustn't waste time.

Master would be angry if the five went unpunished.

Slowly, the creature made his way down the steps and toward the door. The cleaver banged and scraped against the stone floor, but he remained silent. He mustn't speak. Only the guilty could speak, and not for long as he followed them… they would soon be destroyed.

He pushed the door open with one weary hand, taking the first shuddering steps out into the hallway…

Then his helmet got caught in the doorframe and he fell over backwards like a disoriented turtle, flailing helplessly in the shadows.

**~X~**

"Did anybody hear a sound rather like some horrible creature falling over on its way to come and kill us?" Tsubasa asked a fair question.

"I'm not sure," Gingka replied. "But I certainly heard something."

"Forget it," Masamune said, sounding more pleasant than he had all chapter. "I see a stairwell ahead.

We're almost out of this logic-defying hellhole."

"But what about the Red Basin, Masamune?" Gingka asked as the three of them rushed towards the stairs. "We'll need it to get past that locked door."

"At this rate, I think a try of your tomahawk on the stupid thing will be entirely worth the effort," Tsubasa told him.

"Or, you know, one of the two of us could just freeze or form stone into the shape of the indentation," Masamune added.

"And why couldn't we have thought of this before?" Gingka rolled his eyes.

"Plot consistency," Tsubasa shrugged.

Just as the five mounted the stairs and made their way up to the open the door at the top, the basement echoed with the terrifying sound of a woman's scream. In the second's distraction, a steel slab slid across the door to block their exit.

"Oh hell," Gingka groaned. "Now what?"

"It couldn't possibly be some kind of horrifying monster appearing from the shadows to seal our doom in an attempt to protect its Seme master, could it?" Madoka pondered out loud.

"Madoka, remember that discussion we had about not saying really ironic things like that, because they always end up coming true?" Masamune asked him, for lack of a better word, masamunexed.

Sure enough, from the shadows of a doorway at the far end of the corridor, a tall, dark and shadowy figure was very carefully extricating itself from the doorframe. It dragged behind it a long, razor-sharp rusted cleaver—still more than capable of lopping the heads off any unsuspecting passers-by in need of punishment. Silently, the shadow stepped out of the doorway and into the light…

It was in the shape of a pale man in a stained toga, the Gutless symbol standing proudly on his chest. His hands and feet were covered in what appeared to be blood-red nail polish, but was also actually magic marker. And upon his head, concealing his face and weighing him down as though in punishment was a tremendous, red-stained metal bucket.

"Oh, look. A Red Basin," Tsubasa pointed out casually.

**~X~**

Bucket Head was silent as he danced a little jig and wobbled on his feet, slowly heading in the direction of our three heroes with murder in his eyes. Well, not in his eyes… in the bucket, I suppose you'd have to say. Unfortunately, whoever designed a monster with a gigantic bucket on it's head did not put much thought into how this monster would be able to walk, much less hunt down and murder the guilty. The creature took two steps forward, tripped on a piece of rubble, and fell face-first into a pool of tepid basement water.

The five bladers watched him struggling to stand up for a moment, then glanced at each other.

"Oh this is just sad," Tsubasa lamented. "Even Jeffiroth lasted at least a minute or two."

"JEFFIROTH!" screamed the choir from chapter five.

"Is this supposed to be our terrifying challenge for this world?" Yu asked, once the startle from the sudden reappearance of the choir had worn off.

"Maybe we ought to… I don't know. Help him up?" Gingka asked uneasily.

"Why don't we just spare him the embarrassment, take the bucket off his head, and get out of here without another word or even mentioning the incident?" Tsubasa suggested.

"Sounds fine to me," Masamune rolled his eyes.

The five of them made their way carefully down the stairs and slowly approached the struggling

Bucket Head on the ground. Gingka,Masamune, and Yu drew their weapons just in case, and Tsubasa slowly reached down and plucked the bucket off of the monster's shoulders. As the bucket came away, light fell on the face and it revealed something horrible beyond all reason…

**~X~**

Up in the Seme's loft, Hudson was ten seconds away from a murderous rampage.

He stood, holding an empty cardboard carton marked with a huge black skull and crossbones bumper sticker. The seal had been broken and every last gummy bear had been devoured. Hudson crushed the carton underfoot, clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white, and screamed in utter rage.

"THAT IDIOT ATE THE DARK ONE!" he shrieked.

**~X~**

"Oh hell."

"OWIEEE I'VE BEEN STUCK IN THIS THING FOR AN HOOUUUUR!" Kyoyo whined, rolling back and forth in the puddle and immensely glad to finally be free of the bucket.

"We have had ridiculous cliffhangers before," Masamune said in a very dark sort of voice. "But this? Was the stupidest, least-compelling and most idiotic cliffhanger I've ever seen."

"I hate it when that happens!" Kyoyo cursed, sitting up and rubbing his head. "I come down in the basement, lookin' for a good time, go diggin' in a closet, Bob's your uncle, I got me a bucket on my head, right down Davy Jones, eh, wot? Went lookin' for me cleaver got me a rusty hatchet in the eyeball y'know what I mean? WOOHOOOO! LLAMA-FACE!"

"Honestly, I think we're glad to have found you, Kyoyo," Tsubasa said, drawing up several of his lances out of thin air. "We'll have to deal with you sooner or later, and there's no time like the present, is there?"

"Whoa man," Kyoyo's eyes widened, and he crawled backwards and away from the trio staring at him with malice and ill-intentions. "Hey now! We don't gotta end it all violently! All we are saying is give peas a chance!"

"I apologize Seme, but you were never meant to exist," Gingka hefted Pegasus over his shoulder and broke the news in as gentle a tone as was probably possible. "You are only a piece of an incomplete whole. We must restore you back into Kyoya's body where you belong."

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, BEEFCAKE!" Kyoyo screeched and did some kind of clumsy backflip, leaping to his feet and holding the cleaver up over his head. "FOR THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!"

"You got that right," Masamune growled, preparing Striker.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE WE ARE! BOOORN TO BE KINGS, WE'RE THE PRINCESS OF THE UNIVEEEEERSE!" Kyoyo burst into song, and the cleaver was engulfed in an evil light as it began to change shape. "PREPARE YOURSELVES! Kyoyo's

Super Seme Ultra Double Dynamite Loopy-Doo Luau Attack!"

The five bladers braced themselves as Kyoyo seemed to be preparing for an immensely powerful attack, with all sorts of fancy dance moves, dramatic sweeps of the hand and the occasional explosion of sparkles. The cleaver continued to twist and bend and change shape before him, until finally he snatched it out of the air and…

"Oh we're GOIN'! TO A HOOKY-LAU! Hooky-hooky-hooky-hooky hooky-lau! Hooky-laulau- lau!" Kyoyo strummed out a tune on his brand new ukulele.

"This is impossible. It's like killing a caffeinated improv comic," Masamune groaned.

"Hey, do you guys have any gummy bears?" Kyoyo asked quite suddenly.

There was a long pause.

"As a matter of fact, we do," Tsubasa reached into his coat and pulled out the Nalgene bottle, shaking it up to the light to show off the glistening waxy bears inside.

Kyoyo's jaw dropped and his tongue fell out the side, drooling profusely. "OH EM GEE. THOSE ARE MY FAVORITES, YO."

"Would you like some?" Tsubasa asked him, eyeing the rest of GGG in a terribly obvious tone.

"YES YES YES PLZ PLZ PLZ OMG!" Kyoyo squealed, hopping up and down excitedly.

"Let us pour them in a bowl for you," Gingka offered, and pulled out the Tupperware. He very carefully opened the lid, wary not to let any of the four you knows inside drift out and into the open. Masamune took a handful of crackers from Tsubasa and sprinkled them liberally within the container.

"HA!" Kyoyo shrieked, "YOU THINK I AM STUPID! You three think I am so stupid, eh wot? That trick is so OBVIOUS! You think I am so stupid? I know I'm too big to fit in that little Tupperware dish there!"

"So you are," Tsubasa acknowledged.

"You think you're so smart! HAHAHA! Well, I have FOOLED YOU!" Kyoyo cackled triumphantly. "I will have my fishy crackers AND I will not fall for your stupid trick! Watch THIS!"

Pulling a dramatic ballerina pirouette into the air, Kyoyo exploded in a burst of light and all that was left of him was a floating, wispy orb of you know. It jumped and wiggled excitedly, then zipped immediately into the Tupperware to partake in the delicious Haribo, the baked and not fried Haribo, the wholesome snack that kids love until you bite their heads off.

It took Kyoya's 'you know' approximately ten seconds to somehow figure out that it now had no mouth and was no longer capable of eating fishy crackers, but that was far after Gingka sealed the Tupperware lid, trapping the you knows inside until the time they could be returned to their proper owners.

"Really now. That was pathetic," Masamune rolled his eyes.

"I certainly hope Nile's Seme will put up a little more of a fight than that," Tsubasa chuckled, shaking his head. "Speaking of which, we've got our Red Basin. Let's get up to his loft and show him we mean business, shall we?"

"Let's," Gingka smirked. "Pass the Haribo gummy bears, Tsubasa."

"They are delicious, aren't they?" Tsubasa replied.

"Yes. And so wholesome. Mothers can rest easy with Haribo gummy bears," even Masamune was inclined to agree. "Much better than that disgusting sugary… what's-it-called."

Tsubasa tucked the Red Basin under his arm as the three of them made their way to the door. "You know, Masamune, for a moment there I was almost sure the Bucket Head would be some kind of evil sentient cake."

"That was uncalled for."

**~X~**

One trek up the stairs and satisfying unlocking of the chamber door later, Gan Gan Galaxy could faintly detect the sound of dramatic, melancholy music blasting through the door to Hudson's chamber straight ahead of them.

"I WANNA STAND WITH YOU ON A MOUNTAIN! I WANNA BATHE WITH YOU IN THE SEEEEA "

"He listens to Savage Garden?" Gingka smirked, holding back a bit of laughter.

"I think it's high time we put him out of his misery, gentlemen," Tsubasa said. "On the count of three?"

"One," Masamune called out.

"Two," Gingka added.

"And three-"

And with that, the three of them kicked in the double doors, drawing their weapons and standing posed in the doorway like they were having their pictures taken for the official game art.

"Nile! We've come to take you home!" Gingka called gruffly.

There was the sudden scratch of a CD and a noise that sounded rather like a Seme throwing his stereo into a bathtub with an electrical sizzle and a small explosion. "WHAT HAVE I SAID ABOUT KNOCKING ON MY DOOR!"

The five of them watched as Hudson emerged from behind the bathtub and they caught their first glimpse of him. He still looked quite a bit like his usual self—if his usual self had spent six hours in the bathroom with a black eyeliner pencil and pale makeup. His hair was stringy, unwashed and combed into his face, and he wore a dramatic Hot Topic ensemble of a pair of pants with ten suspenders and six sets of chains hanging off them in every direction, topped off with a corset.

"Oh gag," Masamune groaned.

"What is there to gag at?" asked Tsubasa.

"Pick something," Masamune replied, "But I was mostly referring to the fact that he's eight years old."

"I AM NOT EIGHT YEARS OLD!" shrieked Hudson, standing at about four foot six and exceptionally skinny and underdeveloped—much like you would expect an eight-year-old to be.

"Nobody EVER understands me! All the rest of Team Wild Gang made FUN of me… and called me a CHILD… and said I couldn't DO anything… but now I'm one of the only ones left! They all PAID for misunderstanding me… and YOU don't understand me either!"

"You're probably correct in that assumption," Gingka called. "But regardless, the time has come for us to destroy you and take you with us. My good friend Nile will be missing his… you know."

"Puh!" Hudson cackled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like I CARE! Hasn't anyone ever asked me what I thought about it! If I WANT to go back to him? What if I LIKE having a life of my own and ruling the world and brooding six hours a day? WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY CARE WHAT I THINK?"

"It's probably the fact that you're a being comprised of a missing set of… you know," Tsubasa said quite honestly. "And you might as well get used to the fact—we bladers don't generally care what other people think."

"Well then," Hudson narrowed his eyes, and an evil red glow shone from them in the dim light of the room. "If that's the way it is, I'll just have to teach you all a lesson!"

With a mighty explosion of darkness and a blast of emo music (go ahead and pick a band, the author supposes she has been mean enough this chapter), Hudson leapt off the floor and was soon floating in midair, hair sticking straight up behind him and waves of some evil power swirling beneath him on the floor. The force of the explosion knocked the bathtub, the end table and all the furniture in the room over to the side. The bladers braced themselves on the slick stone tile and prepared for what would no doubt be an epic battle. The author owed the readers one since all the cliffhangers and suspense this chapter ended up as stupid jokes.

"What are you all fighting me for?" Hudson yelled over the roar of evil, pointing his hands downward at the floor and grasping as though reaching for some kind of invisible strings. "You all have so much to feel sorry for yourselves about!"

"The only reason I feel sorry for myself is that I have to put up with idiots like you in the course of my duty!" Tsubasa retorted sharply.

"Oh really?" Hudson tightened his hand around something and then jerked upwards. A dark shadow rose from the floor as though he were controlling it like a puppet. Slowly, the shadow took shape—it gained a human form, arms, legs, a long black coat, a hundred thin braids whipping in the gale, and—

"EVERYBODY CALLS THEM DREADLOCKS," an immensely scrawny, whiny and basically grotesque version of Tsubasa screeched the moment it had been fully brought into existence, very much like the dark Tsubasa he had to face when they were in the World Championships. "But they're not DREADLOCKS. They're BRAIDS. Do you know what you have to

DO to your hair to get d-d-d-DREADLOOOOCKS! AAAAGGGGGH!"

"What in the name of—" Tsubasa gaped, stepping back away from this emo replica of himself.

"EVERYBODY MAKES FUN OF MY SIDEBURNS," the dark Tsubasa wibbled, clasping his hands over his eyes and sobbing heartily. "BUT THEY'RE GENEEETIIIIC! MY MEEMAW WAS A SWARTHY WOMAN WITH BIG SIDEBURNS AND MY POOPAW HAD THEM TOOOOOOOO!"

Taking extreme offense at this, Tsubasa snarled and lunged forward, three lances shooting out from behind him to destroy this deplorable thing. The blades passed straight through the Shadow, however, and only served to intensify his whining.

"AND NOW YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL ME!" the Tsubasa Shadow sobbed.

"WAAAAAAAH!"

"Ahahahahahahah!" Hudson howled with laughter and clasped at two more invisible strings, drawing up from the floor two shadows that quickly manifested themselves into the forms of the other two Gan Gan Galaxy members before him.

"EVERYBODY THINKS I'M STUPID BECAUSE I'M A BURGER LOVER," wailed the Gingka Shadow, curled up in the fetal position. "NOBODY UNDERSTAAAANDS ME! I DON'T HAVE A HEAAAAART! I'M JUST A BIG LUNK OF BEEEEF! WAAAAAH!"

"Oh honestly," Gingka rolled his eyes—his attempts to destroy the Shadow also proved futile.

Meanwhile, Masamune's Shadow was having quite an episode of his own.

"NOBODY UNDERSTANDS WHY IT SCARES ME! IT-IT-IT'S SOFT AND SQUISHY AND SWEET AND CREAMY A-A-AND AAGGGGH! I JUST… I HATE… HATE… HATE… HAAAAAAATE CAKE!"

Masamune sighed heavily, buried his face in his hand, and swore swift, terrible revenge on the author.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Hudson was rather enjoying his little puppet show, waving his hands to orchestrate the movement of the shadows. "Don't you SEE? EVERYBODY has something to whine about! EVERYBODY can be like me—LIVING in the darkness! MOPING! SOBBING! ANGSTING! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! EVERYONE WILL FEEL

SORRY FOR THEMSELVES! When I am the ONLY member left of Orgy IX, ALL of Fandom

Fight Beyblade will bow to my angsty will! They will ALL look as these Shadows do- and that CERTAINLY includes you, you pesky pests! AHAHAHAHAHHAA!"

"I don't think so," Masamune growled, glaring at the prepubescent Seme.

"And just HOW do you think you can stop me?" Hudson laughed hysterically, fully caught up in his evil moment.

"Like this," Gingka said casually.

Hudson looking up suddenly, just in time to see Gingka's Pegasus flying through the air, spinning end over end directly in his direction. "BWA-"

But the Seme was too late to dodge it. The tomahawk struck him, he flew backwards and slammed into the wall, and the keyblade embedded itself in the steel girder behind him, effectively pinning Hudson in place. The darkness in the room and the Shadows vanished, as Hudson let out an ear-splitting shriek of "OWWWWW!"

"Thank you, Gingka," Tsubasa sighed in relief, the corner of his lip still twitching in fury at his Shadow depiction.

"You're welcome," Gingka replied, strolling towards Hudson with his arms crossed.

"OWWWWW! MY BROKEN SOUL!" Hudson screamed in pain, wriggling helplessly to escape his rather gruesome-looking predicament. "Y-Y-Y-YOU HURT ME! HOW COULD YOU—"

"Oh stop it," Masamune groaned, "You don't have any internal organs, you little twerp. That oughtn't to hurt you at all."

Hudson's eyes watered and he buried his face in his hands. "NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME! NOBODY! WAAAAAAAAH!"

"Now listen here, you twit," Tsubasa snapped, as the five bladers circled their immobilized enemy. "Angst is all well and good in moderation, but let us remind you of one very simple, very important fact."

"You are a character in Metal Fight Beyblade," Masamune enunciated. "Which is partially owned by Takara Tomy."

"Therefore, there is honestly a little threshold to the possible amount of pissy, whiny angst you can exude at any given time," Gingka finished.

"YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO TELL ME THAT!" Hudson protested, kicking his feet wildly. "YOU'RE OPPRESSING ME!"

"Boy, this series features the Pegasus blader as a main character," Tsubasa placed a hand on his forehead as though he was developing a headache. "Gingka. Haganei. If you really feel the need to exercise your pubescent turmoil through the art of overwhelmingly suicidal, depressing, wrist-cutting

angsty prose, why don't you turn your hand to something a little more suited to it? Silent Hill, perhaps?"

There was a short pause.

"What's Silent Hill?" sniffled Hudson, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve.

There was a long pause.

All five bladers of GGG opened their mouths as though to say something, then closed them.

Then opened them. Then closed them again.

"Have you been in your own basement?" asked Gingka in disbelief.

"I have a basement?" Hudson's eyes widened in shock.

"Oh enough," Tsubasa rolled his eyes and held up one of his lances. "Hold still and let's get it over with."

"WAIT!" Hudson screamed, "I AM ALLOWED A DRAMATIC DEATH SCENE!"

"Make it quick," Yu snapped.

"LOOOONG AGO! LIKE THE HEARSE YOU DIED TO GET IN A-" Hudson suddenly burst into song.

"NONE OF THAT!" all five Bladers yelled in unison.

"Oh fine," Hudson huffed. "I KNEW I LOOOVED YOU BEFORE I-"

With that, Tsubasa abruptly stabbed him below the belt and with a high-pitched screech of horror,

Hudson exploded into purple mist and the usual glowing orb. Madoka gently coaxed it in with the other five, and there was a tense moment of silence, punctuated by three large sighs.

"That little dope listened to Savage Garden," Masamune grinned slightly.

Gingka gently shook the Tupperware, watching the you knows swirling about inside. "In that case, let's just presume to have done him a favor."

**~X~**

"I hope no one has failed to realize that there are only ten more bladers still missing in action," Gingka said a few hours later, as our five said heroes had returned to the G.S. Externalist and fled Vacillation Heights as fast as their engines could take them. They were now seated in the ship's combination cockpit and lounge, partaking in a fresh batch of Haribo gummy bears—like they were really gonna eat the ones in the Tupperware?

"And moreover, the significance in their numbers," Madoka added, carefully adding to his notes of the journey from recorded observations on the guidebook's computer. "Wang Hu Zhong and Starbreakers."

"I have a feeling this is no ordinary world we're coming up on," Tsubasa was gazing out the front transparencies of the ship, his voice grave despite the successful outlook of the mission so far. "No doubt the Semes of the Superior and Jinga will not be the same sort we are used to, either. We must be prepared for anything."

"Aren't we always?" Yu asked optimistically.

Tsubasa smirked slightly, eyes still focused somewhere distant out in the vast reaches of space.

"Finally, we will see exactly who this Grand Master Fangirl is, and what the heart of her wicked plan has to do with us. It will no doubt be very… interesting."

"Honestly," Masamune rolled his eyes. "For the most part, this entire journey has been a giant joke.

Ruined cliffhangers, pathetic creatures to fight… certain pastries aside, I'm not nervous in the least."

"We must have confidence, after all," Gingka agreed.

"But be careful not to get too cocky, guys," Tsubasa warned them, crossing his arms and focusing his attention on a bleeping dot just ahead of them on the radar—a new world, and an exceptionally small and maybe large one, for that matter. "After all… who are we to know what lurks beyond chapter nine?"

"Probably something exceptionally stupid," Masamune shrugged.

"… well, that's a given," Tsubasa rolled his eyes.

**~X~**

Hundreds of thousands of miles away, in the far reaches of space on the far side of the alternate universe, the Darkest Tower in Fandom Fight Beyblade was echoing with the sounds of laughter.

"Chapter nine is complete," the sinister man in some color besides black cackled maniacally, lacing his fingers together. "The puppets are out of the way, and now the little heroes are on their way here… It is almost time for the show to begin!"

He leaned against some complicated computer equipment on the tower's control program, hardly able to contain his sinister laughter. His evil was overwhelming him. He had to express it somehow, lest he explode in a great supernova of wickedness before the final stages of his plan could even be set into motion.

"Yes, yes…" he howled, "They think they are so clever! I can just imagine them, aboard their little ship, speaking of how easy it's all been… well, little do they know what awaits him in THE FINAL WORLD!"

The man clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head and smacking the instrument panel in the throes of hilarity. "Wait. What am I saying? Why, they have two more worlds to go until they reach… THE FINAL WORLD!"

Yes, cue villanous laughter again. Ahem. Are you done yet? Thank you. :)

"Soon," he wiped tears of mirth from his eyes and gazed across the room, where Jinga lay strapped to the slab, still sleeping peacefully, "Soon, my boy, you will awaken to your full potential… soon, you will realize your destiny as the centerpiece to our magnificent plan. And soon, all the worlds in all the universe will have you to thank when they all bow to the Gutless and the magnificence of their eternal rule! AHAHAHAHAHAAA! AH-AH-AH-"

The man suddenly passed out, having choked on a little spit in the back of his mouth.

Two minutes later he stumbled to his feet again, still fighting back hysterical giggles.

"Soon, my plan will come to fruition. Soon, the Grand Master Fangirl will have her glory," he mumbled, a wide, evil grin playing on his lips. "And soon, those five bladers will be on their knees before me, begging for mercy, and I will rend them asunder, finally implementing them into our plan, as was intended from the very beginning! Soon, they will arrive with the you knows… and Orgy IX will stand complete again!"

Taking a break for one last peal of gasping, desperate laughter, he paused, then gazed dramatically out the window.

"Soon," Ryuga's Seme whispered, traces of a grin still on his face. "They will all come to know the wrath… of RYUGI KESHATOO! (A.K.A. R U GAY?)"

Across the room, Jinga was dreaming. He'd just been drafted into Major League Baseball and now there were cheerleaders swarming all around him, begging for his autograph.

The corners of his mouth curled into a dazed smile as he slept, securely bolted down to a slab in the dankest corner in the deepest room of the darkest tower in Fandom Fight Beyblade.

**Wow, I'm sorry that chapter took so long. My world has been a big confusing mess of activity and social life lately (how rare!) including my only con (go ahead and laugh) and a fellow Org VI crony coming out to visit me (say hi to Xelz, everyone!).**

**But hey, chapter's done, now I can be lazy again for a week or so.**

**We are nearing the climax! OMG! I can't promise anything with regards to number of chapters, but wouldn't it be great if I managed thirteen? So… meaningful.**

**Anyhow, everybody have a nice day. Or Bucket Head will come for you in the night and get his head caught on the doorframe. Try getting him out when he's REALLY wedged in there.**

**Special thanks to Raina, Yamiko, Lynx, Gext and Xelz for pre reading this chapter for me at all different stages of its month-long prenatal period.**


	11. Giraffes are not about love, baby.

**Okay, I really haven't come back to this in a long time but this chappie will include of Team Damn Hu Zhang and the world of the Chinese Store.**

**Enjoy! XD**

Team Gan Gan Galaxy were confused in the numbers of how many Semes were caught. And what I mean by that is everyone of them except for Tsubasa, of course. (and Madoka.)

It's been 3 days since they're horrible encounter with Hudson and the ever jovial seme, Kyoyo. The self image of dark Tsubasa still throbbed the eagle blader's mind, perhaps a possible flash back to when he actually met up with his dark self during the World Championships. Gods, Hudson could really make our heroes instantly deaf with his high pitched screams of bloody insanity. (ouch my head hurts when I typed that up.)

"Only two teams left until we reach the final world." Madoka announced as she swiveled out of her seat and placed her guidebook back to it's spot where it first welcomed the user in the beginning of the journey.

"You mean semes, right?" Yu interjected, making Tsubasa frown at his mis-understanding of capturing purple sphere-shaped thingies.

"Yu, I think it's teams. Remember Wang Hu Zhong and Starbreakers?" he smirked.

"Oh, yeah." He suddenly realized, giving Gingka and Masamune snickering laughs behind their hands.

Yu didn't object to see what made both Gingka and Masamune snicker behind their hands, but due to their mission going well, of course, he thought about his self as a seme. Why was he really dressed up as a Libyan solider, working under the name of Gadhaffi or rather the Superior known as the Grand Master Fangirl, whoever she is. And what about Masamune? Why would he go yee haw over the team, all while lassoing GGG to their leader? Plus not to mention Tsubasa's seme who was….. okay he was really not an important role to describe his personality with.

Of course, it sounded fun to capture something different in themselves, but over all it was worth to be awesome.

Silence ensued the cockpit of the G.S Externalist Tsubasa manually studied the controls with an intent gaze glimmering in his eyes.

Masamune slowly and quietly munched on some Cheetos as he lazily stared out of the cockpit window, admiring the view of FFB in boredom. Gingka yawned softly as he started browsing for any new updates on his news feed on Beybook on his phone.

Yu slowly fell asleep as he lowered his head sideways and used the soft growling walls as an uncomfortable pillow support.

A few more minutes past by when Madoka placed her finger up to her chin in a thinking pose. She then noticed her teammate surroundings, all of them asleep except for Tsubasa who was nodding virougously towards the controls. Sitting up, she quietly walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hm?" Tsubasa noticed, rather said a little loud of course.

"Shhh…" Madoka quieted down, "According to the Guidebook here, my instincts tell me we're going in the right direction."

Tsubasa nodded in understanding and sat up a little straighter, messing with the controls on the ship to bring up the active worlds of FFB and the swirling Canon Universe. "Right. What world is it? Because you have to be sure which one it is. Not that we mistakingly head over to the final world. Then our mission's over if we mess up big time."

Madoka shook her head, trying to summarize her answer into one word, "No, of course not. Here it says that we'd be heading into the world of the Chinese Store."

"Chinese Store? How ironic." Folding his arms, he gave out a soft command to the control board which in return gave out a closer visual view of the 'Chinese Store.'

"It looks somewhat like Earth." He commented, Madoka gave him a surprising look.

"What do you find so ironic about this world, Tsubasa?"

Zooming in, he brought up a typical common asian building that sold everything that was naturally 'Made in China.'

"If the planet there is called the Chinese Store, then what's the building called?"

"We still don't know yet." Madoka gave out a shrug as she returned to her seat and started pondering on who could possibly live there.

"We might. If we go there." Tsubasa winked.

"Go where?" groggy with sleep, Yu blinked and rubbed his eyes to ward off the tiredness and catch the news that was now being quietly conversed between the Beymechanic and the Eagle blader.

Tsubasa turned to face him with a warm hearted smile, "The Chinese Store of course."

"Oh." Yu quietly said as he approached the Tupperware and curiously poked the box softly, causing a few purple sphere of You Knows drift mindlessly around the food container.

Just then Masamune and Gingka groaned with sleep clouding their eyes and mouth, as they both yawned like a bear waking up from it's hibernation.

"Man, I'm really not used to sleeping in space." Masamsune quietly commented as he joined Tsubasa's side and his face took an even surprise over the world of the Chinese Store.

Even Gingka was dumbfounded by it, "Who could possibly come up with a name like that?"

"I don't know, Gingka. But according to my guidebook, that's the next world were headed to." Madoka informed as she took a sip of her fruit tea in a straw Styrofoam cup. As soon as she finished it, she paused by the window to see another planet known as the Donut Planet (Shut up. Don't go against the Donut Planet because it's AWSOME!)

But that exactly was not their destination. Continuing on, she even picked up the Cheetos bag which Masamune was snacking from earlier but must've lazily dropped it on the ground while sleeping and made her way to the Food Waste Dispenser. Loading up the tube with the cup and the bag, she closed the lid only for GGG not to realize that there was a loose screw in the whole pipe structure of the ship. Unaware of that, she clicked the button, only for full burst of air to whoosh out of the ship and cause every information of semes on paper to flutter madly along with the air current being blasted out of the ship.

Gingka tried his best to unsuccessfully catch the last pieces of info while Tsubasa very carefully and as quick as a hawk dived to get the large plywood and cover the hole instantly from the rush of oxygen that pretty much every human being in space needed so far. Hammering it with safe and secures, he got up to be proud of his work.

The other three caught their breath as Gingka couldn't believe what he had just experienced, as if he just got off of a rollercoaster ride that kept you dizzy for eternity.

"What…. Was….. That!?" he slowly spluttered while being appall, his heart rising with frightened beats.

"This is why I hate going into space!" Masamune complained as he also got up and tried to maintain his balance.

"For Libra's sake I should've never come with you guys!" Yu barked softly as he crossed his arms, plopped in his seat and pouted in disappointment.

"Guys, forget about the air tract suction from our ship. Don't you realize were missing the most IMPORTANT thing in our journey?" Madoka reminded them seriously.

"What?" All 3 of them except for Tsubasa asked.

"If we tell this to Hikaru, we are sooo done for and there is no going back."

"What do you mean, Madoka?" Masamune asked once he returned to his seat.

"We'll be trapped in FFB forever!?" Gingka wailed. "NOOOO!"

"Gingka! Listen!" Madoka snapped, Gingka went 'huh?'

Tsubasa gave out a short grunt.

"Anything that you collect can be lost in a world that we're currently heading to."

They knew what it was. All eyes of GGG glanced at the shelf just next to the exit door of the cockpit. Their information known as the You Knows were stored in a food container currently drifting it's way to the world of the Chinese Store.

"OH NO! THE TUPPERWARE!" they all shouted in alarm. Then, Yu, Masamune, Gingka, and Madoka caught the glimpse of a yellow distant shooting star heading it's way into the weird Thymosphere of the Chinese Store.

**~X~**

The planet itself for the Chinese Store was actually a city that was prowling with gang infested neighborhoods. It was a place filled with crime, hatred, and insanity. It was typically a place for anybody with any race to hang out with their cool gangs and even create hundreds or maybe thousands of gang territory in the planet. Money was very little common in this world because every gang had enough to party out endlessly in the streets and waste their lives with one shot of a drink or possibly even worse, a bullet. Not many people on this low life of a planet even care to buy things from the Chinese Store because money always stuck to their hands like a magnet and they used it to buy various bad stuff like guns for defense against another gang member, booze for life, or even a few drags and puffs that'll get you floating up towards heaven. This is the story of how the Team Wang Hu Zhong (or rather the Damn Hu Zhang) leader ended up on the streets, failing to even start a business about Martial Arts. Not that many people would care about movement for defense because they easily wielded guns to fend off others instead of using their arms and legs.

And this is how he ended up in the club with his friends.

It was a truly late afternoon (almost midnight) at the Level III night club. It was booming and thumping with loud dance hits that you could even hear from the real building that GGG were talking about earlier. From the inside, multi coloured lights that could almost make you color blind rapidly flashed around the room as there was a wide stage in the back that turned into a runway that went both ways at the end. (Like a sideways 'H') Tables and chairs were put in the space around the stage. The bar took up one side of the room as red velvet plush row seats took up the other, all of them dotted with cigarette after burns. With the floor littered with empty bottles and ripped up random concert/events papers, everybody was screaming and hollering over the music, moving their bodies constantly as if they had just had very bad seizures.

While _Sunstorm_ by Trance Arts and Final Aeon (Running Man Remix) was playing at a very high volume, upstairs in the lounge room, sat a bunch of giggling (almost naked) girls that were circled around the handsome king of the club. His long dark hair with yellow highlights on the side were now a little frail and messy. Those large, green eyes were now wasted and fair skin on his arms and legs were now covered with endless tattoos of (you guessed it) giraffes, flaming skulls, and random Chinese characters lettered down the lower part of his legs and arms. Shirtless without his yellow fur trimmed jacket, his back had the most fiercest of all tattoos. It exposed of the mythical beast of the Ming Dynasty known as Qilin or the Chinese Unicorn, fire blazing in it's eyes as it growls with hate at whoever was staring at his back. Not to mention the words 'ZURAFA' in the Great Arrows font emblazoned across his pale- almost lightly dark-skin. Taking a full swig of (oh, how ironic.) Kirin Beer, he almost smiled at the handsome girl who was named Vicky while lighting up his cig.

"You know, Da Wang Wang. You're just the cutest guy we ever have on this planet."

"Well, girls, you don't find everyday a man like me." he joked making the girls arouse with laughter even more.

"Omg, shut up! Like my boyfriend didn't want to join me. I actually invited him, but he never shows up! I'm so happy to have you. You're so hot." She purred, rubbing her cheek against his muscular tattooed arm.

"Oh baby, you don't have to do that. Here, how bout I get a drink. How bout a shot? What do you say?" Offering the empty glass, he made Vicky slowly fume with fear and anger. Snatching it she immediately threw down (some of the shattered glass pricked the arms of the dancing strippers) and turned hot on her heels and began to leave.

"Vicky!" Da Wang Wang called. "Wait!"

Leaving the girls to mutter with confusion, he reached her by the exit of the club.

"Listen, I'm sorry I was offering the other girl a drink. I should've done it to you inst-…"

Vicky raised a hand, cutting him mid sentence, "No D, I don't wanna hear it."

With that, she smirked his attention towards his expensive sleek black Tesla S being towed from the wrong spot.

"Wait! What the hell are you doing!" he called out as he reached the truck's door. With the window rolling down, a gruff guy in a towing company uniform tipped his hat and set his eyes down to the ever worried and angry Da Wang Wang. "Sorry kid. You parked in the 24 hr. tow away zone. Your fault. Total fee of $1,750 more like it."

"Are you fuckin crazy? First of all I'm not a ratchet kid. Second I don't have that amount of money to pay for some stupid towing like this- and, and, who the hell are you guys? Offering some amount that's even bigger than booze or cigs? Fuck that, man. I ain't payin shit because I'm broke that's what."

Vicky gasped and immediately left.

The towing guy nodded mockingly in sadness and whistled, "There goes your girlfriend."

"Dammit! I just broke up with her! Right now! Can you please lower my car down so that I can chase after her!"

"Three things buddy. ID, $1,000, then you're free to go."

"Fuckin Giraffes galloping around the Savannah, I don't have those! I already told you that I'm broke! Why would I stand here payin your ass to your stupid towing company if I can chase down something much more worth than _this!?_ "

"Okay, buddy, looks like we'll see your sports car at the Sunny Sales Used cars dealership. Thanks for the funny insults and arguments. Have a nice day!"

With that, he drove off carefully down the busy narrow roads of the Chinese Store as Da Wang Wang furiously threw down his cigarette and stomped it repeatedly in anger.

"Can't believe this shit!" he muttered loudly for the girl whom he offered the drink to earlier came with a concerned look on her sad face.

"What happened, D?" she softly asked while hooking her arm on his shoulder.

"Nothing. That bitch left me and got my car towed."

She gasped, bangles clattering in response to her shocked expression, "No, that's a really expensive Tesla S, and it got towed to a used car dealership? How wrong is that?!"

"I know!" he agreed, staring down at the ground. "Now I'm left with nothing."

"Aw don't worry, you can come to my apartment. It's roomy there and I'll offer you nights that are eternal."

"Aw baby girl, you're so sweet." He muttered as he placed a slow kiss on her forehead. "Didn't catch your sweet name again. What was it again?"

"Sasha." She replied while they both walked past looming bars with live music playing from both ends of the street. Only if she saved him from the towing dilelama.

**~X~**

Back with GGG, the G.S. Externalist was getting with series of rackety arguments. Tsubasa luckily calmed them down and honestly demanded who touched the Tupperware.

Both Gingka and Masamune shook their heads no.

"Hey! I wasn't the one who did it!" Gingka said honestly, raising his arms in defense.

Masamune nodded with Gingka, "Me too. Never touched a thing on the ship except for Cheetos."

"Was it you, Madoka?"

"Hey, even though I'm named the Tupperware holder, doesn't mean I touched it. I was initially too busy engrossed in my guide book." Madoka said candidly.

"Hm." Tsubasa slowly thought as his gaze shifted over to Yu who was now hiding behind the seat.

"Was it you, Yu?"

The orange haired blader slowly came into view, "Yes, it's me, Tsubasa." He slowly muttered as he came and apologized.

Tsubasa kneeled down and looked at his younger brother in the face, "Look sorry does nothing Yu but you shouldn't have touched the Tupperware even once. What caused you to have the curiosity to even touch it?"

Yu looked unsure.

"It's fine, Yu. At least we know where it is and we can easily track it down since we know which world it fell upon."

Yu gasped, "Really, Tsubasa? Where?"

Looking ahead, he pointed to a planet that looked similar to Earth. "There. Let us enter the Chinese Store."

**~X~**

Sasha's apartment was rather well furnished. Not bad looking. Although she allowed Da Wang Wang to freely smoke whenever he wanted to, he promised that he'd never light the apartment on fire.

They were snuggling together on the couch, staying fresh and warm. She told him of the story once of how she'd first move into the apartment after she signed a lease contract with the owners, she didn't expect to meet an odd visitor there. No, it wasn't the occasional rat, roach, or mouse.

It was the time she was hungry and went for a quick cereal. The first few cupboards were usually empty as if spiders had made webs to signify the aging of the old ass creaky cupboards doused in dirt and dust.

But as soon as she opened the second one, that made her reel back with shock and almost pinch her nose in disgust. The furry thing screeched viscously at her then used it's tail to close the cupboard again.

It was quite rare for an opossum to be lurking around your kitchen and boy- did it reek of an ugly odor that sure made the whole place stink.

Da Wang Wang softly laughed at the part where she had to chase it down with a broom, but then ended up calling the animal control to handle the furry situation.

"So, he never came back?" he asked towards the point of the climax.

"Yup. I'm so happy. Really D, I don't know where they come from but they sure have a nasty attitude, don't you think?" Sasha said as she grabbed a stale cracker and beckoned him to follow towards the kitchen window above the sink. Once she slid it up, Da Wang Wang's eyes widened with surprise as he stared into the phoposcent eyes of a hissing opossum hanging from a low branch just above the window.

"See? He likes it." Sasha giggled as she lobbed the cracker in the darkness, the eyes of the rodent snatched the treat hungrily and scampered away, the leaves rustling in response to the shaky branch.

Rubbing the back of his head in an unsure manner, Da Wang Wang made no comment. It was as if he never saw opossums in his life.

Sasha now took a lighter in her hand and helpfully lit his cig up. "Feeling better?"

He smiled a little, "Thanks, Sasha. You're the best."

"Aw, there's no need to thank me. Besides, I think I did something for you. Now it's your turn to do something for me."

Opening the squeaky fridge, she presented the shelves that were almost bare with food. "I want you to go into town, into the Chinese Store _Store_ and buy a few groceries. How does that sound?"

"Qilin almighty, I'll do it. Why the hell not?" Da Wang Wang said as he flopped on the couch and wished Sasha a good night.

**~X~**

Gan Gan Galaxy to all of WBBA's hopes, wished that plastic material of the Tupperware did not burn up from crashing on the Chinese Store, thus releasing every captured You Know to join the club.

Thankfully, it did not crash into the Chinese Store but actually ended up in the building (or warehouse store) of the planet.

The store version of the Chinese Store was held 3 ft in the sky (sort of like Beylin Temple- if you know what I mean.) A long curvy wooden bridge escalated high towards the dominating and reigning 'sky mall' that the strange gov of the planet called it the 8th wonder of the world. The store inspiciously sold everything there from everything to everything with the lowest price available in anything (That is they're motto, no kidding.) that was strictly MADE IN CHINA. Any product with another country that was worth better quality than China would be instantly thrown in the trash for good or ultimately destroyed by the gov.

And the store manager of the Chinese Store would be real happy if they actually did it.

The store manager was currently behind the counter, legs crossed on the glass desk, flicking his eyes hungrily towards hot cuties in a mailed magazine. Recently, he ordered his store assistant to keep track of anything and everything being shipped to the store. Check anything that was made in another country to be destroyed. But his attention from working brought him into having a lovely conversation with another employee which he recently called her an Asian hot cutie with Kawaii personality. She in return couldn't stop cuddling.

That made the store manager slapped the desk with his magazine and storm towards the security room. Grabbing a broom on the way, he slammed the door open to find his workers snuggling in love.

Yes, never mess with Lee-Yen or his Thermometer Lakota. His grueling gold eyes could almost make any worker fear of being punished and instantly get their ass back to work. His traditional kimono hat was now replaced with another kimono hat which had a stitched label that read 'the Chinese Store. We sell everything from everything to everything with the lowest price available in anything.'

His purple kimono outfit was now an everyday casual clothing labeled with the same motto of course. And last but not least, his brown boots completed his serious but casual outfit (for a manager at least.)

Aiming the broom like a spear in warning, Lee-Yen fiercely struck a pose that made the tip inch a little forward towards the Virginia blader's face. "Chew Shun? Is this what I expect of working?"

Softly breaking apart from his lover, he suddenly rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment and honesty as he laughed nervously, "Uh, actually Lee-Yen, I was. Just got a little distracted." Getting up as fast as possible, he hoisted up a box that was recently shipped from nowhere and started inspecting the items in a hurry, "If you know what I mean?"

Still, Lee-Yen was not satisfied with Chew Shun's behaviour and barked at the two to resume working.

"If I see it again." He warned, "Then I might have to kick your asses out of the Store, got that?"

"Yes, we have it." May Day whispered nervously as she too started joining Chew Shun in Item inspecting for the store.

May Day now found him awkwardly whistling while working.

"You know, you don't have to whistle while working. That's not necessary."

The Virginia Blader slowly set down a bulb made in the USA and smirked, "Who says I can stop, May Day? I can do it whenever I like it to. Besides, what's the point of inspecting each item if you can just simply sell them all?"

"Well, you have to follow the Chinese Store policy otherwise you'll get fired! Oh and here take this hammer and destroy that bulb."

Placing a hammer in his hands, Chew Shun gave out a look of disappointment as he shrugged about the bulb and prepared to smash both the item and the box repeatedly like stabbing it to death.

"There. All done."

"Good." May Day smiled as she collected the remains of the shattered bulb and the box and threw them into the trash can. She then turned around towards the alleyway door and whisked away with the bag all while winking at her handsome lover.

**~X~**

Grocery shopping.

It was one of Da Wang Wang's least favorite things to do apart from partying of course or hang out with his homies in his gang group known as the Giraffez.

He almost wished he got his Tesla back so that he could easily go and get the groceries in one trip. But no, he was too tipsy that he didn't realize that he parked in a tow away zone. Stupid thing for him to do that. And the towing guy made a big hell of a fortune out of him. Good thing was that although Sasha owned no car, she still had the liability to pay off the towing expenses off of his record. That made Da Wang Wang feel a lot better to get over the paying part although he still wished he got it back from the used car dealership, or even attempt to break in the chain-linked gate and have the hungry temptation to steal it. Anyway it was owned by him, right? Yeah, right.

"Damn, I can't take this anymore." He softly panted while he glanced across to see a line of cars climbing up and down the bridge. "Sasha, you're killing me."

Sitting down, exhausted from the long walk from Sasha's apartment, he thought about doing the 'pick a stranger up with the thumb' trick. But many people kept on ignoring him as they scaled up the bridge towards the Chinese Store. Plan A did not work.

Pacing around, Plan B got him sitting down again stumped in thought, when his eyes lit up towards a blue-green 97' Chevy pick up truck slowly trailing in line.

"Ah ha! That's the ride to be in." Da Wang Wang said to himself as he slowly sneaked up towards the back of the truck and let himself tumble in without the driver noticing the strange movement.

**~X~**

A few quick repairs to the ship made GGG hunt for the Tupperware. All thanks to Madoka and her trusty world Guidebook, she also gave out a surprise of gasp that made her other teammates wonder what she was surprised about.

"What? What is it, Madoka?" Gingka wondered.

"Apart from the Tupperware, I'm receiving signals of 4 Semes from the large warehouse building that me and Tsubasa were talking about. That way we'd get a direct chance to suck them in and successfully capture them."

"Then we'd have to directly climb this bridge if we are to continue our mission." Tsubasa informed as he grabbed his small shoulder bag and lightly woke up Yu from a short nap.

"Wh-what happened Tsubasa?" he slightly stirred, opening his eyes to a new surrounding.

"According to the planet's 8th wonder of the world, you're about to scale the bridge to the Chinese store. Fun isn't it?"

Yu immediately wanted to faint.

"What!?" Masamune immediately shrieked at the horrifying sight of the bridge.

"Yup, and this time, there is no giving up." Gingka grinned as he joined Masamune's side, who was attempting to refuse to climb it. "The one who reaches at the top is proclaimed the world's number one."

"Grrr, Gingka, don't say that!" Masamune was about to spring on top of him.

"Guys stop it." Madoka broke the fight. "Hikaru promised that we shouldn't goof around while hunting down semes. This journey's taken seriously!"

"Madoka's right. We should already obey what she said earlier when we first started this mission." Tsubasa agreed, as he looked at everyone in turn and beckoned his teammates to follow. "C'mon. We have to get the Tupperware back and capture Team Wang Hu Zhong."

And under the hot scaling sun, they proceeded to climb their way up in the narrow people bridge that was placed next to the slow moving line of cars on the actual stony bridge.

**~X~**

The driver still wasn't aware of the Ruzafa blader crouched deep down in the trunk of the pick up truck as it slowly came to a halt in the parking lot next to a 2010 red Toyota Rav4 directly manufactured in China.

Patiently waiting for the driver to get out, this was his chance to seize his escape and enter the heaven of an AC blown building.

Halfway towards the entrance of the store, his free hand in his pocket felt the Camel box of cigs and his yellow BIC lighter. Having the urge to smoke again (this was about his 5th time already), he quickly made his long walk around the back of the store and camped out in the alleyway. Calmly collapsing next to a blue dumpster, Da Wang Wang slowly closed his eyes and relaxed as he exhaled smoke just like a fire breathing Qilin.

Coughing slightly, he opened his eyes again to find a small food container blackened with dirt, lying toppled on one side next to the flattened cardboard boxes ready for recycling. Pickin it up, he blew on the lid to reveal the company known as _Hefty Glad_.

One the back of his mind, he was wondering if he should open it or not.

If opened, Gan Gan Galaxy would be screwed and they would have to start all over again on capturing them all.

But luckily, he lobbed it aside as junk and continued hanging out by laying his back against the metallic bin.

"Okay, will do that!" Startled by the voice that belonged to May Day, she lobbed the bag in the bin before noticing with curiosity at her new worker. "Oh? Hello there. Where did you come from?"

"Uh." Da Wang Wang nervously said, "My girlfriend ordered me to do some grocery shopping but then I got distracted with a quick cig right here. You don't mind, do you?"

May Day gave out a hearty girl laugh, "Sure, I don't mind. Good thing you didn't smoke indoors. Otherwise the whole of the Chinese Store would tumble down in flames!"

Da Wang Wang chuckled, "Yeah, right. Didn't catch your name, cutie girl. Would you mind telling me?"

"Of course, it's May Day!" giggling, she helped him up, then eyed the used Tupperware on the floor. "Hey, is that food container Made In China?"

Picking it up, Da Wang Wang gave out a solemn shrug, "Don't know. Why ask that?"

"It's the store's policy to sell anything that is Made in China. Any other item that's made in another country would be thrown in the trash or destroyed by the gov. Say, this is a very nice Tupperware. Where did it come from?"

"Don't know, I just saw it lying next to the beaten up card boards over there." He said, pointing to where he first saw it.

"You know? You look tired. Maybe you can join us into working. Let's see what Lee-Yen has to say about you okay?"

"Okay." He said as they both entered the back door of the store.

Unaware of Sasha calling him repeadetly to see if he was doing okay, she called her friend who happened to be Vicky of course, and drove to the world of the Chinese Store _Store-_ where everything is sold from everything to everything with the lowest price available in anything.

**Oh geez, anyone agree with the Chinese Store's motto? XD**

**It's too funny and awesome!**

**Now, Gext and Gexegee have gone mysteriously shopping in the Chinese Store unfortunately. They have bought not so quality weapons that were exactly Made in China. :P**

**So time for me to shop around for some FAKE BEYBLADES! X3**

**TOP SET RAPIDITY FTW! XD**

**Yeah the only thing that they fail to do is the packaging quotes. They're not PROPERLY ATTENTIVE AT ALL.**

**Yeah c'mon people, is** _**New Toy, New Design!** _ **and** _**Top Flight/Let It Go!** _ **gonna grab our attention towards the super cool new Beyblades!?**

**Peace out to my WBBA homiez and plz review!**

**Falco276 out! XD**


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